[quote]I know where the phrase is from — but that is not when it was introduced into our Constitution. A letter from Jefferson to some parishioners does not mean something is in the Constitution. If the nation intended to say there should be a separation of church and state the Constitution would have and could have been written that way. Or amended to reflect that change. Moreover, if that is what was intended, there would not have been the commonplace invocation of God in various public organizations — including Congress, prior to Justice Black’s opinion in the 1940’s. History belies your assertion. [/quote]
I think that what really needs to be clarified here is what you mean by “separation of church and state” and whether it’s the same or in any way different from what the Constitution says, or from what Thomas Jefferson says in his letter.
I’ll remind you that the relevant part of the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
To me this seems to mean quite clearly that the Congress shall not tell me which religion I should or should not practice, or favor one religion over another in any functional way. And the Fourteenth Amendment “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” applied the First to state legislatures as well. Which seems to be the same as the separation of church and state (aka the government).
Now, it is a valid point that, prior to the Fourteenth, we only had the separation at the federal level, and it was technically possible for the union to consist of some catholic states, some protestant states, a mormon state and a muslim state. (Even though that may not have been what Thomas Jefferson intended when he drafted the First.) But after the Fourteenth that position is no longer defensible.
