Does anybody know where in the constitution it states there shall be a seperation of Church and State?

Question

It isn't in the first... good try though

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THERE OF ...
it dosen't emply the government will stop a person from practicing religion ON Federal property.
In fact it states that the government will not infringe on a persons right to practice...So why can't a person pray in school?

Please don't give me implied meanings.
Unless you knew the people personally.

Thomas Jefferson was not even in America when the Constitution was drafted. So what does Jefferson have to say about it ???
Does that mean that if G.W. Bush wrote a letter to someone in a few hundred years it would be Law???

Quote.
It's amazing how the Pharisee Right can make the claim that their religious freedom is somehow being infringed upon,

... OH silly me I didn't know that the hundreds of lawsuites out there where on behalf oh the "right".....Does that mean the ACLU is a right wing organisation???

Answer 1

^&^&^&

It is not specifically written, but it is guaranteed within the 1st amendment.

In the United States, separation of church and state is sometimes believed to be in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and by legal precedents interpreting that clause, some extremely controversial. The Establishment Clause states that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" However, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Fourteenth Amendment (one of the Reconstruction Amendments) makes the Establishment Clause and other portions of the Bill of Rights binding on state and local governments as well, although it is arguable that this restriction on state and local government existed in Article VI of the unamended Constitution and that the Fourteenth Amendment was a clarification on the limitation of government power. Many other democratic governments around the world have similar clauses in their respective constitutions.

The phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution, but rather is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, Jefferson referred to a "wall of separation between church and state."

James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, wrote in the early 1800s, "Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States." Ulysses S. Grant also called for Americans to "Keep the church and state forever separate."

The belief that religious and state institutions should be separate covers a wide spectrum, ranging between one extreme which would secularize or eliminate the church, and theocracy, in which the government is an affiliate of the church. Some secularists believe that the state should be kept entirely separate from religion, and that the institutions of religion should be entirely free from governmental interference. Churches that exercise their authority completely apart from government endorsement, whose foundations are not in the state, are conventionally called "Free" churches.

Answer 2

As noted above, it's part of the interpretation of the First Amendment. And it applies to state/local levels through the 14th Amendment.

Specifically, the government (federal and state/local) cannot punish religion, nor establish religion, nor force religion on anyone, nor entangle themselves in religious practices. Since neither is supposed to influence the other, that basically means the two must be kept separate.

People also miss central issue of the whole prayer-in-school debate. Three possible scenarios, so let's look at each one.

First, school sponsors the prayer. It says pray. Or it says, you must be here at this time and place (mandatory attendance = captive audience), and then it allows others to pray. That is government endorsement of religion, and that's explicitly prohibited.

Second scenario. A student, all on their own, wants to pray in class. OK, what's the harm, you ask? Well, can another student recite a poem in class? Or give a political speech? Or talk about their feelings on endangered species? Probably not. But if the school allows the student to pray, when other types of expression are prohibited, then the school (and by extension the government) is valuing religious expression over non-religious expression. And that's implicitly not allowed, for the same reasons as above.

Now, if the school has the equivalent of an open-mike-night for students, or in the case of school newspapers, the Supreme Court has already said that religious expression and religious viewpoints must be allowed an equal opportunity with any other type of personal expression.

The third type of situation is basically an extension of the previous exception. Religions can't be excluded more than any other type of personal expression, but they doesn't get any special treatment either. So, if students can break up into small groups to discuss whatever they want, they can discuss religion as well.

The test imposed by the Supreme Court is whether a reasonable person, aware of all aspects of the activity, would believe that the school (or government) is endorsing or punishing religion. This is automatic where there is direct religious intent.

So, the answer is, separation of church and state (government) is implied because the government is not allowed to interfere with private religious practice (at least not more than any other time/place/manner restrictions on any other type of personal expression) nor may the government endorse or sponsor religious activities, or base laws on religious reasons. Since neither side can thus directly influence the other, that amounts to a separation.

Answer 3

the exact words "seperation of church and state" do not exist in the constitution. The concept comes from the first amendment which reads, "congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free excercise thereof." This prohibits the government from establishing a state religion, like Great Britain has, and also prohibits interfering with peoples right to excercise (or not excercise) religion freely. When the words of the 1st amendment are taken literally, there is only minor separation of church and state, but there is reason to believe that the framers of the constitution believed in this concept. Thomas Jefferson once said that the establishment clause (the 1st part) is intended to erect "a wall of separation between church and State."

Answer 4

It doesn't. The idea was written about by Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists. The following comes from my listed source:

Jefferson used his letter to explain why he didn't call for national days of fasting and thanksgiving, as George Washington and John Adams, his predecessors in office, had done. Jefferson wrote:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

So you see, the Constitution does not demand separation of church and state - Jefferson merely pointed out that the actions of the people (ratifying the First Amendment) effectively created it.

Answer 5

The phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution, but rather is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to a group identifying themselves as the Danbury Baptists. In that letter, Jefferson referred to a "wall of separation between church and state."

James Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, wrote in the early 1800s, "Strongly guarded . . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States." Ulysses S. Grant also called for Americans to "Keep the church and state forever separate."

The belief that religious and state institutions should be separate covers a wide spectrum, ranging between one extreme which would secularize or eliminate the church, and theocracy, in which the government is an affiliate of the church. Some secularists believe that the state should be kept entirely separate from religion, and that the institutions of religion should be entirely free from governmental interference. Churches that exercise their authority completely apart from government endorsement, whose foundations are not in the state, are conventionally called "Free" churches.

Answer 6

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 First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

The first Amendment. And the actual words "separation of Church and state" are not said, but the meaning is there.

Answer 7

The principle is embodied in the First Amendment. The actual phrase "separation of Church and State" comes from Thomas Jefferson's 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists in which he argued that the Constitution created a "wall of separation between church and state."

The actual wording of the amendment guarantees you freedom of (and freedom from, should you so choose,) religion. This means the government cannot forbid you from practicing your religion, but also means the government cannot require you to practice a particular religion. Hence the "wall" and consequent guarantee of separation.

Answer 8

There is nothing in the constitution about separation of church and state. It came from some writings by Jefferson, when he feared that religious activism would lead to religious persecution. People have read this into the constitution ever since.

Answer 9

" . . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U.S. 345, 349 (1921) (Holmes, J.). . . . "
SOURCE: Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)

http://candst.tripod.com/toc.htm

As a high school teacher, I'm fully prepared to teach "Intelligent Design"...however, other subjects would suffer. See, the web sites I know of list 5,000 different versions of "Intelligent Design."

My problem with those fundementalists who have the RIGHT tied up in knots is that they insist that only THEIR brand be taught, and an "activist judge" in their eyes is anyone who doesn't agree with their stance.

Answer 10

It doesn't appear anywhere in the Constitution. It actually first appeared in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to a church. He said in his letter that he hoped there would NEVER be a separation of church and state. Now liberal judges are trying to rewrite the Constitution to fit their Liberal agenda.