Americans Guaranteed Freedom Of, Not Freedom From, Religion
The U.S. Constitution clearly points out that there is a separation of church and state, right? Wrong. It doesn’t.
Many have repeated the phrase “separation of church and state” for so long, a majority of Americans think these words appear in our Constitution.
The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution actually says Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. The words regarding separation of church and state come primarily from two different sources: the Danbury letter written by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 and the Supreme Court case of Everson v. Board of Education in 1947.
The letter by Jefferson was a private letter 11 years after the First Amendment was ratified to the Danbury Baptists regarding the dominant position of a particular church in Connecticut. He used the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state” to assure the Baptists that the federal government would not establish a federally recognized “state” religion.
In the 1947 case, the court ruled that a New Jersey law that reimbursed parents for the cost of bus transportation to public and religious schools did not violate the First Amendment. However, in this case, Chief Justice Hugo Black in his majority opinion (which in my opinion was inaccurate) wrote the First Amendment created a “complete separation between the state and religion,” citing Jefferson’s private letter to the Danbury Baptists instead of citing the actual text of the First Amendment which clearly bars Congress from prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
The true meaning of the religious freedom portion of the First Amendment is to prevent the government from establishing a national religion and to give Americans complete religious freedom without fear of being coerced to show devotion to said national religion.
Religious freedom safeguards the right of all people to hold their own religious beliefs and express them openly without fear of persecution or being denied equal rights of citizenship. It ensures us to freely choose or change our religion, teach our faith to our children, receive and disseminate religious information, gather with others to worship, and participate in the ceremonies and practices of our respective faiths. It protects individuals from religious discrimination in employment, housing, and other basic services and prevents people from being denied the right to have a business, occupation, or professional license based on their religion.
Religious freedom is not absolute. Limits on religious activities are appropriate where necessary to protect compelling interests, such as the life, property, health, or safety of others. These limitations should be truly necessary, rather than an excuse for abridging religious freedom.
Unfortunately, this is where we as a nation have drifted off course. For years our children have been taught in some settings and we have been told the Constitution mandates a separation of church and state.
Truth is, people who fled religious persecution with the intent of securing religious liberty founded America on Judeo-Christian principles. The government has no responsibility to ensure no one is “offended” by religious speech of another, so long as it is not threatening to those limitations mentioned above.
For too many years, we have been told that to be politically correct we need to leave God or any Deity out of our public lives. That attitude tramples on our First Amendment rights. Americans are guaranteed freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.
Regardless whether a person is any denomination of Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist or other, we each have a right to pray, meditate, and worship as we please, as long as we do not trample on the rights of others in the process.
