These five words, separation of church and state, is not mentioned in any of the nation's founding documents, yet they have been used by the court for over 40 years to take religious freedoms away. Last year a court forbid a Kentucky courthouse to display the ten commandments. Courts ban prayers at graduations and Christmas nativity displays on public property. The court has used the phrase to outlaw prayer, bible reading and even a moment of silence in school. Yet, there is no such thing as a separation of church and state.
So where did the idea come from? Thirteen years after the Constitution was penned, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Baptist leaders in Connecticut, and referring to the first words of the Constitution wrote: 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."
George Washington during his Presidency wrote to the United Baptist Churches of Virginia that he wouldn't have signed the Constitution if it "might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society."
Yet, our courts have taken a 5-word phrase that never was and has illiminated our religous freedoms. They created the phrase, then used it against us. What happened to "of the people, by the people, for the people"? Now those are real words.
