June FREEDOM WATCH Online

Throughout the United States, including our local community, there is a trend to deny that there should be a separation of church and state, specifically because those words do not explicitly occur in any founding documents. They cite the founding fathers' religious beliefs, inferring that because many of them were Christian they would have wanted God present in their government. However, this is not an argument over the founding fathers' religious beliefs, but rather their political ones, specifically regarding their views on the role of religion in government. History clearly documents not only the founding fathers' intent to have a separation between church and state, but also many years of court cases which have helped to interpret and reinforce our founding fathers' ideas.

There are many documents that highlight our founding fathers' intent on having a church-state separation, but none are more important than the United States Constitution, the supreme law of the United States. There is only one reference to religion in the original Constitution, and it was Article Six, which stated that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." At the time, of the eleven existing state constitutions, nine had religious tests. The other two states' constitutions did not explicitly prohibit religious tests, but they were not mandated. The absence of God or religious belief in the Constitution was unprecedented and noteworthy; every other constitution and many government documents of the time included such references.

In 1789, the Constitution was amended by adding the Bill of Rights, which was introduced and later accepted in 1791, its purpose being to protect the fundamental principles of human liberty which were not mentioned in the Constitution. The first amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The first phrase of this amendment is referred to as the establishment clause, and the second as the free exercise clause. Critics of church-state separation are right; there is no mention of "separation of church and state." However, a thorough reading of other documents makes the intent clear.

On October 7, 1801 the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, wrote a letter to President Thomas Jefferson concerning religious freedom. The Danbury Baptists felt their religious liberties were threatened by Connecticut's official support of the Congregationalist Church. They were concerned because "our constitution of government is not specific."   Jefferson's response became famous. To encourage and express his support for the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson wrote that "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 the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."   This shows the founding fathers' intent on building the United States as a secular nation, where the government would stay out of the religious sphere.

It is clear that the founding fathers intended for the United States to be a secular nation, and the courts in the United States have overwhelmingly upheld their intent. While there is a vast array of cases to look at for this subject, there are two very important ones that demonstrate this well.

One of the most famous court cases regarding the First Amendment is Lemon v. Kurtzman. This 1971 case occurred after a statute in Pennsylvania provided financial support for teacher salaries, textbooks, and instructional materials for secular subjects to non-public schools.   It also challenged a Rhode Island statute that provided direct supplemental salary payments to teachers in non-public elementary schools.   So the court case was initiated to determine whether these statutes, which provided aid to private, church-related schools, violated the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. The court ruled that these statutes did, in fact, violate the Constitution. Additionally, the court provided a three-part test to determine whether a law does not establish religion. The so-called Lemon Test states that a law is legal if: a. It has a secular purpose; b. its primary effect neither advances nor inhibits religion; and c. government does not become entangled in religion. It is clear why, using this test, the statutes were considered illegal. The Lemon Test has been criticized, but it has been used as recently as 2000 by the Supreme Court.

In another case, Wallace v. Jaffree, an Alabama law authorized teachers to set aside one minute at beginning of each day for a moment of "silent meditation or voluntary prayer," and sometimes teachers would ask students to recite some prayers.   Three of Jaffree's children attended public school in Mobile, and he thought that the Alabama law violated the First Amendment. The courts agreed with him. The courts determined that the law did not have a secular purpose, and that it actually constituted an endorsement of religion. It sought to establish religion in public schools, thereby violating the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

With both of these cases, the government is forced to not endorse religion. The Lemon Test provided a way to show that a law did not violate the constitution, and that included having a secular purpose. The courts, throughout the years, have interpreted the Constitution and the founders' intent to mean that there should indeed be, using Thomas Jefferson's words, a wall of separation between church and state.