Jefferson's "Wall of Separation"
  by Bruce Monson

January 2 will mark the 201st anniversary of the famous "wall of separation between church and state" phrase enunciated by our third President, Thomas Jefferson, in response to a concerned letter he had received from the Danbury Baptist association of Connecticut. They were concerned about their religious liberty in that state because of taxes being imposed upon them for the support of other churches. Jefferson's response reciprocated their concerns for religious freedom and added the following:

"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."

The importance of the Danbury letter should not be understated. Here we see Thomas Jefferson describing in plain language how he understood the INTENT of the First Amendment. And this is no small matter considering that the First Amendment was based on Jefferson's own Virginia Freedom of Religion Act.

The typical protest we see from Christian fundamentalists is that the words "wall of separation" do not actually appear in the Constitution and consequently, they argue, the First Amendment is really a one-way street that prohibits the Government from meddling in the affairs of the church but does not prohibit the church from influencing Government policy.

This is a red herring. It is disingenuous to argue that the principle of separation does not exist simply because the exact words "wall of separation" do not appear in the Constitution. If we are to discount the principle simply because Jefferson employed poetic license in interpreting the wording, then a whole host of Constitutional principles would have to be discounted for the same reasons -- principles such as "religious freedom," "separation of powers," "fair trial," and even "Bill of Rights," none of which appear in the Constitution.

Indeed, if one is to argue INTENT based on the ABSENCE of wording, then there is no more damaging evidence against the "We are a Christian nation" pundits than the Constitution itself which is completely devoid of any reference to "Jesus," "Christianity," "Christian nation," "Ten Commandments," or any other sectarian concept. Even "God" did not make the cut, replaced as it was by something far more radical to the American Experiment, "We the People."

Worse still, those same framers also included a clause that seems antithetical to the "wear your religion on your sleeve" litmus test of patriotism we see pressed in the political arena today. Article 6, Section 3 states, "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." Hardly the words of "devout Christians" intent upon creating a "Christian nation."

If the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom does not also guarantee the freedom to dissent then it offers no freedom at all. This simple premise defines in-a-nut-shell Jefferson's ideology both as a politician and a person, and those that would balk at such an idea of tolerance and the need for separation between religion and government would be advised to take heed of another famous quote from Jefferson: "It behoves [sic] every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."

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