On church and state
John Brummett’s column on religious expression was kind of interesting until he decided to hawk a liberal program produced by Rob Reiner. It’s not surprising that Brummett is kindred with the religion-hating Reiner. Liberals have attempted to use the First Amendment as a means of pushing Christianity from the public arena and the place it has held since the inception of America.
The term “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution. The term was taken from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to answer the Danbury Baptists’ concern that the federal government might seek to establish one specific Christian denomination as the state or federal church, or to allow the federal government to interfere with Christian religious expression. Jefferson not only went to church as president, he did so inside the House of Representatives. The church services were presided over by every Protestant denomination. And this was really Jefferson’s idea of separation of church and state, meaning no establishment of a specific state religion, and not the exclusion of state recognition of Almighty God.
According to Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, the First Congress instituted the practice (ongoing) of beginning its legislative sessions with a prayer. “The same week that Congress submitted the Establishment Clause as part of the Bill of Rights for ratification by the states, it enacted legislation providing for paid chaplains in the House and Senate. … The day after the First Amendment was proposed, the same Congress that had proposed it requested the President to proclaim ‘a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed, by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many and signal favours of Almighty God.’”
Liberals have twisted language like a pretzel to exclude religion from the public sphere in many instances. Do you really think we as a society have improved since taking prayer out of schools? Maybe Brummett can answer that.
DON CURDIE
Little Rock