Decicco 1 In 1789, the First Amendment established that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” This meant the Federal and State Governments could not be partial or show support for any certain denomination or religious organization. However, throughout the history of the United States the controversial question over the relationship between church and state has always been called into question in establishing a one religion government. The main focus of the inquiry is to decide whether to keep the establishment clause or to tear it down and move towards a theocratic system. One side of the debate is the group against the separation of Church and State, who believe that if America was a more religious nation that it would become more moral as well as bring everyone in agreement with national decision making. Therefore the belief is that the United State would become more unified in an already corrupt system. On the other hand, the side for separation argues that the distance between established religion and national government is inherently necessary to keep maintain: religious tolerance, prevent biases, and prejudices, along with any sort of religious freedom in country that has thousands of different organized religions.
With careful consideration of these arguments, the separation of church and state is not only favorable to the American society but also essential to have a functional governmental democracy. For hundreds of years the Federal Government has had separation between organized religion and government functions which, has shown to best protect the religious freedom of the American people and protect the rights established in the constitution. Therefore, the current establishment of se...
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...nderstood. However, throughout the course of American history activists have tried to sway the idea that joint church and state is not only beneficial, but mandatory for growth in American moral culture. While changing the government may change the sense of leadership, redistricting laws to benefit one specified religious group is contrary to the idea of a democratic system where each person has a chance to be heard and live in equality. The existing stance separation of church and state is an obligation that the American government and people, must fight to uphold in order to insure that the rights of the American population are not infringed upon. The founding fathers fought and died for the ideas of a country that embodied life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and it would be intolerable to try and put a stop to a system that embodies these core ideas.
When it came down to the government during the convention of May 1776, instead of protecting our rights they had passed them down causing us to be under common law. If one had denied the Christian faith and went against everything it believed in, such as, “there are more Gods than one, or denies the Christian religion to be true, or the scriptures to be of divine authority, he is punishable on the first offence by incapacity to hold any office or employment ecclesiastical, civil, or military,” (Jefferson 176). This is what most people had thought about if you did not follow their religion. Thomas Jefferson believed that the wall between church and state should be very high in order to keep out and prevent hostile situations. Using an example from today’s news, many people get uncomfortable in the United Stated with the Muslim religion because of the previous horrific events that led to many cruel deaths in our history. By this, the way that we look at these people is forever changed because of the incidents and who knows if we will ever not be hostile with one another because of it. If church and state hadn’t been separated we may have not become a true democracy from what our developing country was seeming to lead towards. More people would not be as accepting of each other, and not that they are still not today, but I feel as if it may
The general court was set on a path to separating the beliefs of the church and the government. Luckily, years later a law would be passed in the Constitution that separates church and state.
In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt recognized the place that religion holds in democracy. “Religion, by teaching man his relationship to God, gives the individual a sense of his own dignity and teaches him to respect himself by respecting his neighbor's. Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows. International good faith, a sister of democracy, springs from the will of civilized nations of men to respect the rights and liberties of other nations of men. In a modern civilization, all three—religion, democracy and international good faith—complement and support each other” (Franklin D. Roosevelt: State of the Union message). This statement supported the idea that religion is associated with a well functioning government. However, in the case of Everson v. Board of Education it was stated that, “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach” (Hugo Black). This case occurred after Roosevelt’s presidency, and left a significant impact on the American government, as it made clear that religion had no place in the government (Hugo Black). In recent years, a larger disconnect between the church and the American court systems has been created with the nationwide
A popular notion among many religious conservatives is the rejection of what is commonly referred to as the separation between church and state. They maintain the United States was founded by leaders who endorsed Christian principles as the cornerstone of American democracy, and that the First Amendment prohibition against government establishment was not intended to remove religion from public life. As a result, a number of disputes have made their way through to the courts, pitting those ready to defend the wall of separation, against those who would tear it down. Two recent cases have brought this battle to the forefront of political debate. The first involves an Alabama Supreme Court justice, who, in defiance of a Federal judge, fought the removal of a granite display of the Ten Commandments from the rotunda of the state courthouse. Also, a California man has challenged the constitutionality of the phrase “under God” in an upcoming Supreme Court case involving student recitation of the pledge of allegiance.
The Protestants who emigrated to America knew from experience of the negative effect the government had on religion when the two were operating together. With the mindset of creating a new perfect holy land, they decided to make sure both church and state worked separately. While Puritans still did everything they could to enforce their beliefs in New England, including exiling those who did not attend church regularly, the core idea of separation of church and state was in the minds of the people. In order to have a country that values the freedom of religion, the church has to be out of any government policy. Any laws that are created around a single church’s faith, even if the majority of the population believes in them, threaten the freedoms of all other denominations. Ame...
The Myth of the Separation of Church and State retrieved on January 7, 2005 from: http://www.noapathy.org/tracts/mythofseparation.html
" There is another reference to religion in Article 6, Section 3. This clause states "the United States" and the several States shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution. but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust. under the United States" http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html. For the purpose of this paper I am going to focus on the establishment of religion above mentioned in the The First Amendment..
Wood, James E, Jr. "Religious Human Rights and a Democratic State." Journal of Church and State 4(2004):739. eLibrary. Web. 31 Aug. 2011.
Prayer has been banished from schools and the ACLU rampages to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. Moreover, “Separation of Church and State” is nowhere found in the Constitution or any other founding legislation. Our forefathers would never countenance the restrictions on religion exacted today." -- Bill Flax, Forbes, 2011. Church and State seem to be two words that are entirely inseparable from each other.
...ating that ‘No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever…but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion ‘ (Document D). Another discussion that kept arising after the American Revolution was how much power the government should have. Having already dealt with tyranny under King George III, the colonists were apprehensive about giving the government too much power. However, in ‘The Federalist’ James Madison states that Government must have the power to control people, but that the abuses of government must be controlled. He states that ‘in framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the greatest difficulty lies in this; you must first enable the government to control the govern; and in next place oblige it to control itself.’
To open this discussion, I would like to start with the civil liberty of freedom of religion. This liberty was identified in my original Constitution essay through the mentioning of the separation of church and state clause. The reason for my including of this liberty, and my stressing of its importance, is that I feel that the government interprets this liberty in a one sided fashion because of the incorrect interpretation of the already in place separation of church and state clause. I also include it because I believe that recently the attacks upon religion have metastasized and tha...
America has been built on freedom throughout the years. Freedom to speak, freedom to choose, freedom to worship, and freedom to do just about anything you want within that of the law. America’s law has been designed to protect and preserve these freedoms. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. It assures citizens that the federal government shall not restrict freedom of worship. It specifically prohibits Congress from establishing an official, government supported church. Under The First Amendment, the federal government cannot require citizens to pay taxes to support a certain church, nor can people be prohibited from worshipping in any way they see fit. However, if a certain religion recommends a practice that is contrary to public morals, such as polygamy, Congress may prohibit such a practice (Weidner, Daniel, 2002). The people of the United States also have the right to assemble peaceably under the First Amendment. The only restriction comes from the word peaceably. Assembly may not be prevented, as long as the proper authorities have reasonable assurance that the meeting will be peaceful (Weidner, Daniel, 2002).
In Our Agnostic Constitution, Steven Smith submits a concrete argument involving the misrepresentation of the interpretation of an agnostic constitution. If the United States constitution was in fact made religious it would help create a divide amongst the communities, and produce rebellion. When the Founding Fathers drafted our original Constitution, they took in to account the religious diversities and the foundation of opposing belief systems. Smith illustrates how religious belief and everyday life situations causes dissonance within a person. It is possible to believe something to be true but act in another manner.
Madison said “In God We Trust” (Allen, Brooke 2005) he never said in our government we trust. Why is it that after adopting those words to our money society wants to forget them? After all, we did believe God was the reason we came to the United States. Overall, why separate the church from the state? The government should separate the church from state, because it is safer, the bible says to, and it would be unconstitutional if we did not have this separation.
...ernment that attempts to serve both civil and religious liberties equally sets itself up for a false mission. History has proven that the two do not exist in harmony but can prevail separately. Both are ideas expressed by Jefferson, Madison and other great thinkers then and now. Though the Constitution may seem godless, its lack of religion assures the protection of church rights and vice versa. The separation of church and state is equally beneficial to both parties.