Church and State!

Well, I listened to the pundits ramble on about the health care reform this week while I was off on other topics. The outstanding theme now is it's the republican's fault. I'm sure they'd be happy to take credit for it but truth be told it's a democratic revolt causing the holdup. Democrats never asked for the republicans opinion on this issue! It wasn't until the blue dog democrats saw the liberals running amok, that the republicans were even engaged. The telling part of this whole situation is it wasn't because the premise of health care reform is wrong, not power granted by the constitution, but that the blue dogs knew it was unpopular and they might be voted out!

President Obama appealed to influential religious leaders to help promote his health care agenda. Does anyone lese find it amusing that a ACLU loving, card carrying secular progressive, who believes strongly in separation of church and state, would use a religious platform to achieve his initiative? I've have to credit Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward for pointing out in their book Leadership and Liberty that there is no actual wording calling for separation of church and state.It was taken from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson and his opinion on the amendment.

The modern concept often credited to the writings of English philosopher John Locke, the phrase separation of church and state is generally traced to the letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists, in which he referred to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution as creating a "wall of separation" between church and state. [3] The phrase was then quoted by the United States Supreme Court first in 1878,[4] and then in a series of cases starting in 1948.[5] This led to increased popular and political discussion of the concept

The actual amendment says this....
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The concept was that the Government couldn't create a federal religion,nor restrict the practice of religion, not that religion has no place in Government. Interpretation of the wording is what led to the ACLU's constant cry for separation of church and state. Now I wasn't aware of that. How about you? See how our ignorance of history promotes assumptions that just aren't true? As you can see the Supreme Court has overstepped it's bounds creating a legal interpretation that has been assumed into law, and we all know what ass/u/me means!

God Bless
Capt. Bill
P.S. Thanks Chris and Orrin, always the teachers!