we as Republicans in a community of learners pledge to protect and support the Constitution of the United States of America, to abide by its stated principlesWhen I had just posted a position paper on the relationship of broadcasting to the First Amendment, someone posted that DU had criticized it as being subversive of the First Amendment.
On reflection, I noted that socialists favor "the Constitution" and "the First Amendment"--not the document as written and understood when adopted, but as a blank slate on which the socialists presume to write at their own pleasure. The "First Amendment" which has a one-way "wall of seperation between church and state." A wall which does not defend the moral traditions of the people, but rather protects the government (if run by socialists, of course) from moral judgement.
Not at all what one would derive from the use of the expression by Jefferson in a cordial reply to a cordial letter from a Baptist convention. One should not marvel at the latter; freedom from government sponsored churches and freedom of religious practice are principles naturally congenial to Christians who view the world through the eyes of the authors of the New Testament--writings from the time when Christianity had never been the Establishment anywhere.