The Constitution limits government, not citizens

The battle will always be between God and government. The U.S. Constitution is a document established to limit and control government. There is not a single word in the Constitution limiting citizens. Our constitution was written in response to free people recognizing the need of government but also realizing the dangers of government.

Recently, a teacher in Spanish Fort High School in Alabama issued a summer reading list to his students, including my book, “It’s OK to Leave the Plantation!” The list was disallowed due to the conservative titles. Only the government can censor books. Government constantly seeks to dictate and control.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident” means they should be perfectly clear to everyone. Some things are basic for a society. “All men are created” is our foundation and our declaration. Without recognizing our creation by God, we cannot recognize being governed by God. If God created us, no man should rule us. As created beings endowed by God, certain unalienable rights are granted to us by God: “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” not better management. There is always a conflict between God and government. There will always be a pull between freedom and control. It is natural and expected. If you are free then you are in a constant battle to maintain your freedoms.

From the point of view of the founding fathers, the “separation of church and state” (an expression paraphrased on Thomas Jefferson, but used in that form by JFK), originally meant something different than what we imagine today.

That is, the founding fathers detested the European kings and princes, who had long claimed to be “anointed by heaven” to justify their acts. That is, if you broke the king’s law, you were not just breaking the criminal or civil law, you were acting in an affront to God.

This was it, then. That as Lincoln said, “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people...” was really all that separation of church and state meant. The law was the secular law, even if it overlapped with religious law.

It doesn’t mean that politicians cannot be religious, nor that the people are forbidden from celebrating or honoring their faith in public, even on government property. Even that government could freely allow religious expression.

Just *not* that the laws were in any way written or endorsed by God or heaven, or gods, or anything not subject to the will of the governed.

Any other interpretation of “church and state” should neither be codified nor exist in judicial precedent.

This is something too often overlooked in discussions of the "meaning" of the 2nd Amendment. The first 10 Amendments are known collectively as the "Bill of Rights." Governments do not have "rights," governments only have powers and/or authorities. "Rights" are the exclusive province of the citizenry. Everything in the first 10 Amendments was intended to either enumerate what Jefferson called man's "inalienable rights" or to limit the powers of the federal government to guard against intrusiveness, overreach and malfeasance. Nothing in the 10 in any way, shape, form or fashion expands the power of government.

TO: yefragetuwrabrumuy

From the point of view of the founding fathers, the “separation of church and state” (an expression paraphrased on Thomas Jefferson, but used in that form by JFK), originally meant something different than what we imagine today.

That is, the founding fathers detested the European kings and princes, who had long claimed to be “anointed by heaven” to justify their acts. That is, if you broke the king’s law, you were not just breaking the criminal or civil law, you were acting in an affront to God.

This was it, then. That as Lincoln said, “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people...” was really all that separation of church and state meant. The law was the secular law, even if it overlapped with religious law.

It doesn’t mean that politicians cannot be religious, nor that the people are forbidden from celebrating or honoring their faith in public, even on government property. Even that government could freely allow religious expression.

Just *not* that the laws were in any way written or endorsed by God or heaven, or gods, or anything not subject to the will of the governed.

Any other interpretation of “church and state” should neither be codified nor exist in judicial precedent.

You overlook the fact that each and every one of the original 13 states had an official State Religion. In fact, several remainede until after the War Between the States, which means they still had an official State Religion while Lincoln was POTUS. New Hampshire held out until the 14th Amendment was ratified because its Equal Protection clause was seen as forbidding the practice. But New Hampshire still forbade non-Protestants from holding state office until a decade after 14A was ratified.

Speaking of Catholics, several of the original states altogether forbade the practice of Catholicism. New Jersey did so until 1844.

We still have a number of state laws that are entirely religion-based, such as those forbidding blasphemy or sodomy. And probably every state in the union has some vestige of a "Blue Law" which limits what type of commercial enterprise can be engaged in on a Sunday. So no state government is yet entirely free of the dictates of some religion or other.

As to the fear of hereditary nobility, in the years they took hashing out the U.S. Constitution, the Continental Congress once considered hiring a minor European nobleman to temporarily be King of America. They weren't yet seeing the light at the end of the constitutional tunnel and they figured any stable government would do until they could get the kinks worked out. This minor nobleman would have come by his title entirely because he was “anointed by heaven,” but the Continental Congress found that a key requirement for filling the position rather than a disqualification.

The phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear and the US Constitution and I doubt it's in the federal code. The real rationale for the 1st Amendment's religion clause was to prevent the federal government imposing a state religion on the individual states so each state would be free to impose one of its own choosing. Which they did, until the several states further agreed to ratify 14A.

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