The Separation of Church and State: A fundamental misunderstanding exists.

Well, I found the Jefferson stuff very interesting. I especially liked the date. 1802. Do you know what year James Madison completeld the Bill of Rights? 1789. It was ratified in 1791. More than a decade before that letter. You can't point to Jefferson as the origniator of the establishment clause here. Either way, it doesn't matter in this debate. We're debating how people today view it. Not how Jefferson viewed it. Continuing. I said: "Then you go on to talk about how secularists use it to keep the church out of government. Yeah. The government can't have a religion in it. That's what the Establishment Clause means. " You responded: "I said nothing of the sort. I naturally defy you to substantiate the claim that I said, or even made allusions to your assertion. " If you insist: "The trend of today's zeitgeist is that the 1st Amendment has been manipulated to extend to anti-religious sentiments. The most common citing of the 1st Amendments have always been the assertion that the Church has infringed upon the State. " Moving on. "People generally have an aversion towards hypocrisy, right? Why then would it be so absurd to call someone out for that hypocrisy when it seems evident that a younger generation is being lied to? " Just because people want to use the 1st Amendment hypocritically doesn't mean that their interpretation is wrong. They're just being selective about using it. Whether or not that is right or wrong is a compeltely different debate. They still ahve the right interpretation. The difference is, they only care about part of it. As to your ACLU rant, look here: . http://www.forward.com... Some favorite parts: "In response, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the federal government on behalf of the Jewish War Veterans, which is protesting the monument on church-STATE grounds. " '"We're saying it's unconstitutional and it shouldn't be allowed to exist there," said Bob Zweiman, chairman of the organization's national coordinating committee. "We have no problem if it's on private property, even 5 feet away, but you can't use federal land to push one religion over any other, especially not at a time when you have soldiers sacrificing for values that are not specific to any one religion or another. "' It's on public land. Quite contrary to what you're trying to make us believe. If you're going to make references to anything, please, know what you're talking about. That's twice I've had to correct you. Of course, you might be talking about something different, and my Google search just didn't come up with anything. I'll ask that you start sourcing your references so that there is no confusion. Now going on to one of your assertations: "he government decided to come in and regulate marriage, basically telling pastors, priests, rabbis, imams, and the like what they can and can't do. That is a huge affront to the 1st Amendment, as it was never intended for the government to have anything to do with marriage. " First of all, this is within their bounds, as marriage is also a legal contract. Second, give me one instance where a pastor, priest, rabbi, or imam has been forced by the government to do it their way. You're making a claim without any evidence. I'm pretty sure a priest can refuse to wed anyone. ". .. Yet no one utters a word in protest. The Separation of Church and State has become so one-sided over the last 100 years or so, that one wonders how that even happened. " Again, you're giving absolutely no evidence! You must prove that relgiious rights are being trampled on before your case even begins to hold any weight! You have not given one example! "I can only guess as to what is causing this confusion. I speculate that it derives from my comment that society generally sides with the State. No one seems to care when religion is being trampled, they only seem to care when religion is trampling the state. Based off of the clear lucidity of the 1st Amendment, shouldn't both the State and the Church be protected equally from one another? " There is no confusion. You're claiming that these relgious rights are not being equally protected. But you've given no evidence for this. Look at America. We have so many religious interest groups in this country (in fact, here's an entire book about it: . http://www.questia.com... ), how can you possibly say that no one is standing up for religious rights? From Quakers to the religious right, how can you make such an assertation? Once again, the bruden of proof lies on you. Until you can prove that the rights of the church against the state are taking a back seat to the rights of the state, your case holds no weight. So cut out all of the extraneous garbage in the final round. Please, give us some evidence for your claims.