Seperation of Church and State?
- Thread starter Darth Despot
- Start date
Share this page
Steve-o
TACOS
aloyouis on 10-21-2006 at 05:10 PM said:
The only Constitutional Amendment I've heard proposed lately was one that would ban gay marriage. Was that the ACLU's doing?
Flagg the Wanderer
Mourning Algernon
I have no idea who is advising the school board, but he/she should be sued for malpractice.
That said, I violently disagree with the current state of Church/State law as laid down by the Supremes. But that's not really relevant here as non-attendees are losing class time.
That's a quick take with about 2 minutes reading and 30 seconds thought.
That said, I violently disagree with the current state of Church/State law as laid down by the Supremes. But that's not really relevant here as non-attendees are losing class time.
That's a quick take with about 2 minutes reading and 30 seconds thought.
aloyouis
at least generally aware
Steve-o on 10-21-2006 at 05:18 PM said:
Trust me...the ACLU is not trying to change the Constitution in bigs chunks. They have been changing it for years in small doses so that we the Americans that are hurt by it and don't pay much attention to it won't notice.
aloyouis
at least generally aware
Flagg Wanderer on 10-21-2006 at 05:26 PM said:
And that point is about the only REAL argument. The 1-2 studenst that don't want to attend the class SHOULD be taught something else during that time period. To leave them sitting doing nothing was very, very dumb.
aloyouis
at least generally aware
Steve-o on 10-21-2006 at 05:18 PM said:
I remember reading the following story when I was kid in Lowell Public Schools...probably at the Daley Jr. High. I would be shocked if the ACLU/NEA would allow it to be read by students today. My wife is a middle school teacher and she had never even heard of the story and also doubts that it would be let in to todays ACLU/NEA controlled and patrolled public schools. It does mention GOD so it must be stricken. I apologize in advance for the lengthy post.
Harrison Bergeron
by Kurt Vonnegut (1961)
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.
Some things about living still weren’t quite right, though. April, for instance, still drove people crazy by not being springtime. And it was in that clammy month that the H-G men took George and Hazel Bergeron’s fourteen-year-old son, Harrison, away.
It was tragic, all right, but George and Hazel couldn’t think about it very hard. Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn’t think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and Hazel were watching television. There were tears on Hazel’s cheeks, but she’d forgotten for the moment what they were about.
On the television screen were ballerinas.
A buzzer sounded in George’s head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm.
“That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did,” said Hazel.
“Huh?” said George.
“That dance – it was nice,” said Hazel.
“Yup,” said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren’t really very good – no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn’t be handicapped. But he didn’t get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts.
George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.
Hazel saw him wince. Having no mental handicap herself she had to ask George what the latest sound had been.
“Sounded like somebody hitting a milk bottle with a ball peen hammer,” said George.
“I’d think it would be real interesting, hearing all the different sounds,” said Hazel, a little envious. “All the things they think up.”
“Um,” said George.
“Only, if I was Handicapper General, you know what I would do?” said Hazel. Hazel, as a matter of fact, bore a strong resemblance to the Handicapper General, a woman named Diana Moon Glampers. “If I was Diana Moon Glampers,” said Hazel, “I’d have chimes on Sunday – just chimes. Kind of in honor of religion.”
“I could think, if it was just chimes,” said George.
“Well – maybe make ‘em real loud,” said Hazel. “I think I’d make a good Handicapper General.”
“Good as anybody else,” said George.
“Who knows better’n I do what normal is?” said Hazel.
“Right,” said George. He began to think glimmeringly about his abnormal son who was now in jail, about Harrison, but a twenty-one-gun salute in his head stopped that.
“Boy!” said Hazel, “that was a doozy, wasn’t it?”
It was such a doozy that George was white and trembling and tears stood on the rims of his red eyes. Two of the eight ballerinas had collapsed to the studio floor, were holding their temples.
“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”
George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.
“You been so tired lately – kind of wore out,” said Hazel. “If there was just some way we could make a little hole in the bottom of the bag, and just take out a few of them lead balls. Just a few.”
“Two years in prison and two thousand dollars fine for every ball I took out,” said George. “I don’t call that a bargain.”
“If you could just take a few out when you came home from work,” said Hazel. “I mean – you don’t compete with anybody around here. You just set around.”
“If I tried to get away with it,” said George, “then other people’d get away with it and pretty soon we’d be right back to the dark ages again, with everybody competing against everybody else. You wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“I’d hate it,” said Hazel.
“There you are,” said George. “The minute people start cheating on laws, what do you think happens to society?
If Hazel hadn’t been able to come up with an answer to this question, George couldn’t have supplied one. A siren was going off in his head.
“Reckon it’d fall all apart,” said Hazel.
“What would?” said George blankly.
“Society,” said Hazel uncertainly. “Wasn’t that what you just said?”
“Who knows?” said George.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about, since the announcer, like all announcers, had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, “Ladies and gentlemen – "
He finally gave up, handed the bulletin to a ballerina to read.
“That’s all right –” Hazel said of the announcer, “he tried. That’s the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.”
“Ladies and gentlemen” said the ballerina, reading the bulletin. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful, because the mask she wore was hideous. And it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all the dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two-hundred-pound men.
And she had to apologize at once for her voice, which was a very unfair voice for a woman to use. Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody. “Excuse me – ” she said, and she began again, making her voice absolutely uncompetitive.
“Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen,” she said in a grackle squawk, “has just escaped from jail, where he was held on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. He is a genius and an athlete, is under–handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous.”
A police photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen – upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up. The picture showed the full length of Harrison against a background calibrated in feet and inches. He was exactly seven feet tall.
The rest of Harrison’s appearance was Halloween and hardware. Nobody had ever worn heavier handicaps. He had outgrown hindrances faster than the H–G men could think them up. Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. The spectacles were intended to make him not only half blind, but to give him whanging headaches besides.
Scrap metal was hung all over him. Ordinarily, there was a certain symmetry, a military neatness to the handicaps issued to strong people, but Harrison looked like a walking junkyard. In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds.
And to offset his good looks, the H–G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggle–tooth random.
“If you see this boy,” said the ballerina, “do not – I repeat, do not – try to reason with him.”
There was the shriek of a door being torn from its hinges.
Screams and barking cries of consternation came from the television set. The photograph of Harrison Bergeron on the screen jumped again and again, as though dancing to the tune of an earthquake.
George Bergeron correctly identified the earthquake, and well he might have – for many was the time his own home had danced to the same crashing tune. “My God –” said George, “that must be Harrison!”
The realization was blasted from his mind instantly by the sound of an automobile collision in his head.
When George could open his eyes again, the photograph of Harrison was gone. A living, breathing Harrison filled the screen.
Clanking, clownish, and huge, Harrison stood in the center of the studio. The knob of the uprooted studio door was still in his hand. Ballerinas, technicians, musicians, and announcers cowered on their knees before him, expecting to die.
“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.
“Even as I stand here –” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened – I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!”
Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds.
Harrison’s scrap–iron handicaps crashed to the floor.
Harrison thrust his thumbs under the bar of the padlock that secured his head harness. The bar snapped like celery. Harrison smashed his headphones and spectacles against the wall.
He flung away his rubber–ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.
“I shall now select my Empress!” he said, looking down on the cowering people. “Let the first woman who dares rise to her feet claim her mate and her throne!”
A moment passed, and then a ballerina arose, swaying like a willow.
Harrison plucked the mental handicap from her ear, snapped off her physical handicaps with marvelous delicacy. Last of all, he removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful.
“Now” said Harrison, taking her hand, “shall we show the people the meaning of the word dance? Music!” he commanded.
The musicians scrambled back into their chairs, and Harrison stripped them of their handicaps, too. “Play your best,” he told them, “and I’ll make you barons and dukes and earls.”
The music began. It was normal at first – cheap, silly, false. But Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played. He slammed them back into their chairs.
The music began again and was much improved.
Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while – listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it.
They shifted their weights to their toes.
Harrison placed his big hands on the girl’s tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers.
And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!
Not only were the laws of the land abandoned, but the law of gravity and the laws of motion as well.
They reeled, whirled, swiveled, flounced, capered, gamboled, and spun.
They leaped like deer on the moon.
The studio ceiling was thirty feet high, but each leap brought the dancers nearer to it. It became their obvious intention to kiss the ceiling.
They kissed it.
And then, neutralizing gravity with love and pure will, they remained suspended in air inches below the ceiling, and they kissed each other for a long, long time.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.
Diana Moon Glampers loaded the gun again. She aimed it at the musicians and told them they had ten seconds to get their handicaps back on.
It was then that the Bergerons’ television tube burned out.
Hazel turned to comment about the blackout to George.
But George had gone out into the kitchen for a can of beer.
George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. “You been crying?” he said to Hazel.
“Yup,” she said,
“What about?” he said.
“I forget,” she said. “Something real sad on television.”
“What was it?” he said.
“It’s all kind of mixed up in my mind,” said Hazel.
“Forget sad things,” said George.
“I always do,” said Hazel.
“That’s my girl,” said George. He winced. There was the sound of a riveting gun in his head.
“Gee – I could tell that one was a doozy,” said Hazel.
“You can say that again,” said George.
“Gee –” said Hazel, “I could tell that one was a doozy.”
Steve-o
TACOS
Vonnegut. Excellent. Handicapper general.
So stop trying to handicap my kid with your prayer in our schools.
By the way, Vonnegut's enemies are pro-school prayer, not the ACLU.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION (US SUPREME COURT)
Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico
After a "Book Review Committee" composed of parents and school staff proposed removing certain books from library shelves in the Island Trees Union Free School District , 17-year-old Steven Pico and four other students went to court charging that they were being denied their First Amendment rights. In 1982, the US Supreme Court ruled that because school libraries provide an "environment especially appropriate for the recognition of the First Amendment rights of students," officials could not "remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books." But authorities do have "significant discretion" to decide what goes in the libraries in the first place.
Among the books slated for removal were Bernard Malamud's The Fixer, Desmond Morris' The Naked Ape, and Pin Thomas' Down these Mean Streets. The Committee wanted some books – such as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s Slaughterhouse Five and Richard Wright's Black Boy to be made available to student only if they had their parents' approval. Some members of the School Board who objected to these and other books called them "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy."
Listen to the oral argument: http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/1060/
Read the decision: http://www.faculty.piercelaw.edu/redfield/library/case-islandtrees.htm
So stop trying to handicap my kid with your prayer in our schools.
By the way, Vonnegut's enemies are pro-school prayer, not the ACLU.
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION (US SUPREME COURT)
Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico
After a "Book Review Committee" composed of parents and school staff proposed removing certain books from library shelves in the Island Trees Union Free School District , 17-year-old Steven Pico and four other students went to court charging that they were being denied their First Amendment rights. In 1982, the US Supreme Court ruled that because school libraries provide an "environment especially appropriate for the recognition of the First Amendment rights of students," officials could not "remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books." But authorities do have "significant discretion" to decide what goes in the libraries in the first place.
Among the books slated for removal were Bernard Malamud's The Fixer, Desmond Morris' The Naked Ape, and Pin Thomas' Down these Mean Streets. The Committee wanted some books – such as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s Slaughterhouse Five and Richard Wright's Black Boy to be made available to student only if they had their parents' approval. Some members of the School Board who objected to these and other books called them "anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and just plain filthy."
Listen to the oral argument: http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/case/1060/
Read the decision: http://www.faculty.piercelaw.edu/redfield/library/case-islandtrees.htm
Umfold
Member
In the slavering search for subversive literature on the shelves of our public schools, which will never stop, the two most subversive tales of all remain untouched, wholly unsuspected. One is the story of Robin Hood.
And another, as disrespectful of established authority as the story of Robin Hood, which "Cinderella" and "The Ugly Duckling" are not, is the life of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament.
-Kurt Vonnegut / Timequake
By the way, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 has been banned in the past. It's because the word 'mother****er' is used.
Also, Jesus was a liberal. Left, and Red, and of course, murdered because of it.
And another, as disrespectful of established authority as the story of Robin Hood, which "Cinderella" and "The Ugly Duckling" are not, is the life of Jesus Christ as described in the New Testament.
-Kurt Vonnegut / Timequake
By the way, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 has been banned in the past. It's because the word 'mother****er' is used.
Also, Jesus was a liberal. Left, and Red, and of course, murdered because of it.
aloyouis
at least generally aware
Think about what you just said. Why was Jesus crucified? Because of his political views?
You have to stop saying things just because you like the sound of it. Just because you say it doesn't change facts.
Very common for an oppressive viewpoint to be propagated by repeating it over and over.
Umfold
Member
He was a liberal. He was not a war mongering neo-con. Sorry this reality makes your brain hurt. Try not to think about it, and just lie to yourself. I'm sure that's worked up till now. No need for you to change.
aloyouis
at least generally aware
What a great thread!
religion.....physics...
Although there is tremendous disagreement amongst us it is non the less a great thread as I have learned and been reminded of much that I had lost.
I have been inspired to go read things that I had lost interest in.
Thanks all!
religion.....physics...
Although there is tremendous disagreement amongst us it is non the less a great thread as I have learned and been reminded of much that I had lost.
I have been inspired to go read things that I had lost interest in.
Thanks all!
OP
OP
Darth Despot
We ass
- Joined
- May 13, 2005
- Messages
- 21,427
- Reaction score
- 3,214
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Upgraded to Probable
- Website
- tokevinwithlove.wordpress.com
Check the Mormon thread in the Classics forum for another wide-ranging and civil discussion of religious differences (don't let the thread title or the first page or 2 throw you)
Steve-o
TACOS
aloyouis on 10-23-2006 at 09:25 AM said:
Arguing is a great way to learn. I never learn anything when I'm sitting around agreeing with people all the time.
Jaric
Vae victis
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2005
- Messages
- 52,818
- Reaction score
- 5,212
- Points
- 113
- Age
- 43
- Location
- Dagobah grow house
Hmm kinda jumping in towards the back of the thread so forgive me if the topics have switched in recent posts.
The reason that these issues on the seperation of church and state exist because religeon when used improperly can cause terrible things.
The problem exists because a finite being (humans) are incable of interpreting the actions or intents of an infinite being (god, in whatever form you wish)
Like a previous poster very eloquently put, the middle man is what screws it up.
If you study differant religeons, they generally have the same messages. The main differances are little details. But the overall message is the same. That's what I believe always gets lost when religeon comes up. That the proverbial forest goes missing while we argue the size of the trees.
Mark Twain once wrote, "Religeon can be summed up in two words: Be good."
It's been my experiance, that the people who speak the loudest regarding religeon usually do so for their own ends. Which makes sense. If God is powerful enough to create life, what good I am going to do arguing on their behalf? The only thing I create every morning could hardly be considered "life."
So why does America have a genuine intrest in keeping religeon out of state sponsership? Because there is no way to involve religeon in state sponsered activites without excluding someone from it, which by precedent violates the constitution.
Many have tried to include certain religeons by trying a "seperate but equal" type environment. And based on how well that worked for racial segregation I think we should abandon that idea ASAP.
I suppose my question for those claiming there is inherit benifit (exluding constitutional arguements and focusing only on the civic benifit) for having these sorts of programs be part of a public school ciriculum is why does something that we have decided on numerous occasions is between man (the "royal man") and god need to invade a place that is designed to teach reading, writing, and arithimatic?
Regardless of what the constitution says, I believe that religeon has no place in a public school simply because it is not the appropriate avenue for that to be taught. Thats what your church is for.
So until Father Mckenzie (yeah for beatles referances!) starts teaching math on sunday, let religeon stay in the church.
The reason that these issues on the seperation of church and state exist because religeon when used improperly can cause terrible things.
The problem exists because a finite being (humans) are incable of interpreting the actions or intents of an infinite being (god, in whatever form you wish)
Like a previous poster very eloquently put, the middle man is what screws it up.
If you study differant religeons, they generally have the same messages. The main differances are little details. But the overall message is the same. That's what I believe always gets lost when religeon comes up. That the proverbial forest goes missing while we argue the size of the trees.
Mark Twain once wrote, "Religeon can be summed up in two words: Be good."
It's been my experiance, that the people who speak the loudest regarding religeon usually do so for their own ends. Which makes sense. If God is powerful enough to create life, what good I am going to do arguing on their behalf? The only thing I create every morning could hardly be considered "life."
So why does America have a genuine intrest in keeping religeon out of state sponsership? Because there is no way to involve religeon in state sponsered activites without excluding someone from it, which by precedent violates the constitution.
Many have tried to include certain religeons by trying a "seperate but equal" type environment. And based on how well that worked for racial segregation I think we should abandon that idea ASAP.
I suppose my question for those claiming there is inherit benifit (exluding constitutional arguements and focusing only on the civic benifit) for having these sorts of programs be part of a public school ciriculum is why does something that we have decided on numerous occasions is between man (the "royal man") and god need to invade a place that is designed to teach reading, writing, and arithimatic?
Regardless of what the constitution says, I believe that religeon has no place in a public school simply because it is not the appropriate avenue for that to be taught. Thats what your church is for.
So until Father Mckenzie (yeah for beatles referances!) starts teaching math on sunday, let religeon stay in the church.
Steve-o
TACOS
I am proud of our Marines for getting it right.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/14/toy.jesus.ap/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/14/toy.jesus.ap/index.html
OP
OP
Darth Despot
We ass
- Joined
- May 13, 2005
- Messages
- 21,427
- Reaction score
- 3,214
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Upgraded to Probable
- Website
- tokevinwithlove.wordpress.com
On a personal level, I've never been a Christian, at least not in the way "Christians" mean it.
I celebrate Christmas, I recognize it is a "Christian" holiday albeit with pagan roots.
I would be highly offended if my child was given a Jesus Doll without any prior discussion with me. I am always pissed when my in-laws send my kids "Focus on the Family" propaganda and Junior Bibles in the guise of Christmas Presents (they are aware of my feelings on religion).
All that said, I'd be fine with Toys for Tots accepting this donation, as long as parents are asked if they were OK receiving this gift prior to recieving it. I suppose logistics might make that impossible but I'm not sure why.
I celebrate Christmas, I recognize it is a "Christian" holiday albeit with pagan roots.
I would be highly offended if my child was given a Jesus Doll without any prior discussion with me. I am always pissed when my in-laws send my kids "Focus on the Family" propaganda and Junior Bibles in the guise of Christmas Presents (they are aware of my feelings on religion).
All that said, I'd be fine with Toys for Tots accepting this donation, as long as parents are asked if they were OK receiving this gift prior to recieving it. I suppose logistics might make that impossible but I'm not sure why.
SamBam39
Active member
I firmly believe that religion should remain a personal decision. And that all the proselytizing needs to stop! Believe what you wish and leave me alone!
OP
OP
Darth Despot
We ass
- Joined
- May 13, 2005
- Messages
- 21,427
- Reaction score
- 3,214
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Upgraded to Probable
- Website
- tokevinwithlove.wordpress.com
Mr. President
To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, 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. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.
This is the text of a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in which the term "Separation of church and state" is first heard. I think it provides an interesting context for the discussion
To messers Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.
Gentlemen
The affectionate sentiments of esteem & approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful & zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, and in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more & more pleasing.
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, 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. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.
I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection and blessing of the common Father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves and your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.
(signed) Thomas Jefferson
Jan.1.1802.
This is the text of a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in which the term "Separation of church and state" is first heard. I think it provides an interesting context for the discussion