The myth of church and state

I was watching "Book TV" on C-SPAN and their speaker was this author named Stephen Mansfield who was giving a presentation on his newest book “Ten Tortured Words: How The Founding Fathers Tried to Protect Religion...and What’s Happened Since.”

The allegedly mangled 10 word phrase: “Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Basically, this moron spent close to an hour bashing the separation of church and state as a misunderstanding and a bad law.

His main argument is that, while we have the freedom to choose our religion, religion in and of itself is a necessity of a moral and successful society. Furthermore, the Founding Fathers knew this and would never have supported a complete separation of church and state.

Mansfield basically says that "Separation of church and state," is a silly made up phrase that Thomas Jefferson mentioned in passing, and that it has no bearing on the actual Amendment which says that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

That's like saying "separate, but not equal," is a silly made up phrase mentioned in passing that has nothing to do with the Amendment which says "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Does the Amendment specifically say that separate cannot be equal? No. So, according to Mansfield’s logic we should basically go tell Thurgood Marshall to shove it. Sorry Brown V. The Board of Education, but your court ruling isn’t specifically addressed in the Constitution—we’re bringing segregation back!

He went so far as to accuse the American CIVIL LIBERTIES Union (ACLU), of suing the Boy Scouts of America as a means of making a profit. Not only that, but he says that it uses threats of lawsuits as a means of BLACKMAIL in order to basically spread the plague of secularism.

He claims that it was the intention of the Founding Fathers to protect religion, and that this petty and scrutinizing secularism is an abuse of the entire basis of the Constitution.

This guy is ridiculous, verging on hypocritical. He claims that by misinterpretation of the Constitution, these annoying activists have completely divorced the document from any significance it originally held.

But who is he to claim he knows, for sure, what the original intent of the Framers was? Was he there? No. And the malleability of the Constitution is probably the most significant feature of the incredible document.

I say, that by asserting that only one interpretation of the Constitution can be accepted, he is divorcing the document from any significance it originally held.

All in all, I don't see why this guy is complaining. America is basically a Judeo-Christian state anyway. I mean, look at our lawmakers’ justifications against gay marriage: “sanctity” this, “the Bible” that, “immoral, immoral, immoral.”

Mansfield should just go screw Ann Coulter and leave the preaching in the pulpit.