The church-state myth

[The GCW]

It is good to see this. It seems that clean Christianity is simply to love one another; Bush is not a representative of honest Christianity where killing and murder are absent... Obedient Christianity does not allow cannabis prohibition and so in the real realm there is no need for separation of church and state; only a need for separation of state and men of lawlessness. The state with the true church could only love one another.

The following letter I read in a Penn. newspaper was welcome.


The church-state myth

The letter from Jim Grossman Jr., about the relation between the state and religion, was written without thought, I hope ("Separating church & steak," Nov. 23). Certainly it was written without a close knowledge of either the Catholic Church or the Bill of Rights.

Mr. Grossman thinks that "there is a separation of church and state." In fairness to him, this is the most flagrant misconception of how our Constitution reads.

It is an abomination that began with a phrase written by Thomas Jefferson in a private letter. In 1947 Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black inserted the phrase into the decision Everson v. Board of Education and contextually changed it so that it appeared that there truly was a wall of separation intended in the First Amendment.
It was not, and it is irresponsible to continue this myth. Every authority who has researched and written on this knows that "separation of church and state" is an unfortunate metaphor meant neither to appear as law nor to convey the erroneous interpretation that was forced on us by Justice Black.

Thomas Hardy - Allison Park http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/letters/s_279552.html

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