Donald K. Allen for President

Church and State

Throughout our country’s history church and state have been like a two-lane road going in one direction. Not a boulevard with grass and trees in between. The SAME road, but there is a line in the middle, just to prevent the government from ever imposing a state religion, or vice versa as in the Middle East. Inseparable in that religion was always a part of our founding fathers’ lives. Religion guided them in decision-making and how they led their personal lives.

God is referred to in many of their writings. Now, however, the American Civil Liberties Union and other radical organizations want us to obliterate any reference to God from all of our government’s functions and activities. They would have all signs of religion removed from public view everywhere. Kind of like the Soviet Union. I think the majority of Americans would just like to remove them instead. They could all go to China or Viet Nam, where Communism is alive and well, or so they would lead us to believe.

Our Constitution simply states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;” and nothing more.  This was included to counter the King of England’s authority to mandate a national religion over all the people, something that our founding fathers did not want to happen here.  That’s it – Congress will not establish a national religion.  Nowhere in the Constitution is there a phrase, “separation of church and state.”  That has been a broad interpretation of the Constitution, which has been used to eliminate religion from practically every facet of public life.  In fact, this interpretation by our Supreme Court trumps the next part of the sentence, “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

It is high time Americans took back the original meaning of our Constitution and repealed the prohibitions against religion in schools, public places, and government facilities.  Our country was founded on religious values and the founding fathers presumed that moral underpinning would never change.  True separation of church and state would have been anathema to them.