The Island of Logic

In this day and age we hear a lot of people throwing the phrase “separation of church and state” around like it was the only defining case law for dealing with issues that pertain to religion and government. Anti-religious organizations have used it as an excuse to silence the free expression of religion, and the constitutional rights of those that they feel infringe upon the scope of their particular religious scope of thought. It got me thinking……..Why has a metaphor become so misrepresented in our nation?
No metaphor has had as much on law and policy than Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation between church and state”. Today, this figure of speech is accepted by many Americans as a description of the constitutionally ordered church-state arrangement, and has become the sacred icon of strict “separationist” zealots that promote a secular society in which Christian influences are systematically and decisively stripped from public life. In our own time the court systems have embraced this phrase as a virtual rule of constitutional law, even though the “phrase” is nowhere to be found in the U.S. Constitution.
Let’s explore shall we? …… Okay then, the “wall of separation between church and state” phrase actually comes from a letter written by Jefferson to the “Danbury Baptists” who were concerned that the government (namely the federal government) would be interfering in the religious affairs of the church. Jefferson responds in a letter written New Year’s Day, 1802, he states that “believing with you that religion is a matter that which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach only actions, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church and State “. So was Jefferson trying to say that religion has no place in public life? Consider this; Jefferson endorsed using federal funds to build churches and to support Christian missionaries working among the Indians. Jefferson’s intent was to build a wall between the national and state governments, not as some would have us believe, between the church and all civil government. In his second inaugural address delivered in March 1805, he said “in matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the constitution independent of the powers of the general [i.e., Federal] government, I have therefore undertaken on NO occasion to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it; but have left them, as the constitution found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies”.
The difference in Jefferson’s wall, and the “high and impregnable” wall established in 1947 (Emerson v. Board of Education), and even built higher by the modern Supreme Court, is very, very clear. We only have to look at Jefferson’s record as a public official both as Governor and as President, which shows that he initiated practices and implemented policies that are very inconsistent with wall that is being established today. The wall that has been built today is a barrier that inhibits the activities of both government and religion alike unlike the First Amendment which imposed restrictions, on civil government only.
We must face the facts that the “wall of separation between Church and State” has often been used as an expression of exclusion, intolerance, and bigotry, and has been used to silence people and communities of faith and to exclude them from participation in public life. Today the wall is the poster child of strict separationist rhetoric intolerant of religious influences in the public square, and is being used by Federal, and State courts to justify censoring religious expression in public, stripping public spaces of religious symbols, and even to the extent of wanting to remove crosses from veteran’s graves.
But alas Jefferson’s metaphor has not produced the practical solution that the wall builders intended it to, but rather has done what walls often do, obstruct the view. It has blurred our understanding of constitutional principles. Take away Jefferson’s metaphor, and the “Church and State” debate would probably be more candid and transparent, and the “separationist” movement would be forced to articulate only the assumptions and ideas of their perspective rather gloss over them with a metaphoric slogan. In a pointed criticism of the Court’s use of the metaphor, Justice William Rehnquist said that “the wall is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned”.
The wall of separation was built to keep government out of religion, not to keep religion out of government, or public life, and the high jacking of it by special interest groups and the ACLU just goes to show that we have no understanding or appreciation of our Founding Fathers and what they stood for. We can debate the words and terminology of Jefferson’s metaphor, or the constitution for that matter but the intended meanings and interpretation are found in history, and in the lives of those who wrote them. You want to know what they meant, look at how they lived it out and applied it to their life and time.

On May 30, 2009 students at Santa Rosa High School in Milton, Florida made a statement to the ACLU and in fact to the world, saying enough is enough. Members of the graduating class of 2009 expressed their objections to ACLU restrictions on statements of religious faith at their school by rising up en masse at their ceremony and reciting the Lord’s Prayer. The incident has been virtually ignored by media outlets throughout the region, according to officials with Liberty Counsel, a legal team representing Principal Frank Lay and teacher Michelle Winkler in their battle with the ACLU, which had complained that faculty and teachers were talking about their beliefs.
Nearly 400 graduating seniors at Pace, a Santa Rosa County school, stood up at their graduation, according to Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel. Parents, family and friends joined in the recitation, and applauded the students when they were finished, Staver said that “Many of the students also painted crosses on their graduation caps to make a statement of faith,” the organization reported.” Neither students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate,” said Staver, “The students at Pace High School refused to remain silent and were not about to be bullied by the ACLU. “Schools are not religion-free zones, and any attempt to make them so is unconstitutional,” he said.
In a time when we see Republicans folding like cheap umbrellas this sort of thing is not only refreshing it is very encouraging. Just maybe the future isn’t as hopeless as we sometimes make it out to be, maybe some of our younger generation has been paying attention. What this country needs is politicians, parents, adults, people like you and me to have the courage to stand up along side these students and say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH” we refused to be bullied by groups like the ACLU (which could easily be called anti-Christian liberties union) and if you want to sue us go ahead, but if you’re going to sue one of us, you’re going to have to sue us all, because united we stand.
Santa Rosa Class of 2009, you have done something the rest of us wish we had the courage to do. You have proved that there might be hope for our future after all, I salute you, and keep standing true to your convictions other will eventually follow. GOD BLESS.