THE TRUE INTENT OF THE FOUNDING FATHERS WITH REGARD TO

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

The only way to understand the meaning of the First Amendment is to look at what the Congress COULD have and could NOT have meant by those few words, in terms of the then Congressional debate preceding final passage of the First Amendment, and in terms of what other legislation written at the time discloses about Congress' beliefs about the issues involved in the part about religion treated in the First Amendment.

The most telling refutation of the entire false theory of what it means according to current judicial opinion, is a quotation of the language written in an extremely important piece of legislation, The Northwest Ordinance. The Northwest Ordinance is ranked number four in importance relative to all Government documents, behind the Constitution, The Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation.

Article III of the Northwest Ordinance reads as follows:

"Article III. Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary in good government, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

This statement presumes that public schools are proper and necessary to teach religion and morality which they did until this age when all hell is breaking loose because the schools and too many parents are not teaching religion and morality.

The First Amendment, written in the same year as the Northwest Ordinance, could not possibly have meant anything like what today's judiciary, new age advocates, too many college professors, most of the media, and the majority of our culture say it means.

Now let's proceed from the first draft of the First Amendment offered on the floor of the House through various versions until final passage, along with the rationales offered as reasons for each change that came along:

James Madison composed the first draft. His wording: "The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, infringed." (There would be no more Salem witch hunts, no more Inquisitions. There would be no more letters from the Danbury Baptists, or from the good Jew who wrote to Washington asking if Jews were to be persecuted.) That was the context of the issue being addressed -- not questioning the importance of religion as the basis of morality in our government, nor the applicability in our government of the laws of God.

After much discussion, the House Select Committee, on August 15, 1789, proposed this version: "No religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed."

Noting that the words are subject to being interpreted out of context, Peter Sylvester, Representative of New York, objected to this version, saying on the floor,

"It might be thought to have a tendency to abolish religion altogether."

James Madison then proposed the insertion of the word "national" before "religion" but this was not agreed upon, so Madison offered this version:

"That Congress shall not establish a religion, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to his conscience." Note the implication that of course men would worship God according to their conscience.

Again, a Congressman arose in concern. Congressman Benjamin Huntington, son of the Governor of Connecticut, protested:

"The words may be taken in such latitude as to be extremely hurtful to the cause of religion." (Little did he know.) He then suggested that the Amendment be made in such a way as to secure the rights of religion, but not to patronize those who profess no religion at all."

Roger Sherman did not even want an amendment, realizing that the federal government was not to have any say in what was under the individual states jurisdiction.

James Madison realized that Congressman Benjamin Huntington understood the meaning of the words to be that Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience.

Madison then responded agreeably to Congressman Huntington and Congressman Sylvester, that he (Madison) believed that the people feared one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two (Congregational and Anglican) combine and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform.

(Readers may note that this is in context with what the letter from the Danbury Baptists to Jefferson was about.)

On August 15, 1789, Samuel Livermore of New Hampshire, proposed the wording:

"Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience."

Other subsequent versions coming during Senate debate included the following:

"Congress shall make no law establishing religion, or to prevent the free exercise thereof, or to infringe the rights of conscience."

" Congress shall make no law infringing the rights of conscience, or establishing any religious sect or society."

"Congress shall make no law establishing any particular denomination of religion in preference to another, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, nor shall the rights of conscience be infringed."

"Congress shall make no law establishing one religious society in preference to others, or to infringe on the rights of conscience."

The final Senate version was, "Congress shall make no law establishing articles of faith or a mode of worship, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion."

A joint committee of both the House and Senate then finalized the wording of this part of the First Amendment as follows:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights was finally ratified by the states. This was a declaration of what the Federal Government could not do, leaving the states free within the control of their own constitutions.

CONCLUSION

The First Amendment in its entirety states: "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."

It cannot be over-emphasized that the Bill of Rights in regard to Church-State matters was simply stating specifically what the federal government could not do. Already established was the founding father's insistence (a few quoted herein) that belief in God and his laws was part of this One Nation under God's foundation, and that schools, since religion and morality were essential to good government and to political prosperity, would teach religion and morality, but not exclusively of one denomination.

The Founding Fathers stressed the need for religion as the basis of morality. The first amendment is not about repressing religion. The first amendment is a footnote about what the federal government cannot do respecting religion, and insisting that the biggest thing government and society cannot due is inhibit the free practice of religion.

The Judaeo-Christian Ten Commandments were taught for over two hundred years in our public schools. There were federal designations of publicly observed Days of Thanksgiving to God for special favors from God. Our national day of Thanksgiving was proclaimed and there were designations of National Prayer Days -- all routinely established down through our history.

Now the previously undreamed of forbidding of prayer before football games, the lawsuit by the bullying ACLU against VMI for having said grace before meals -- OUTRAGEOUS. Gay rights and lesbian rights parades with police clearing the streets and mayors joining in, desecration of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York by one parade. Aids prevention demanding and getting massively disproportionate moneys than all other diseases. The ban on public religious displays, on the Manger in Christmas decorations . . .

The nation's culture demanding free sex and portraying and selling pre-marital and extra-marital sex, incest, homosexuality and bestiality as normal and even better than marital sex. The White House Christmas party a few years ago featured condoms and sex toys as decorations while Manger scenes are subject of wide prohibition.

As Pat Fagan's following section proves, society has suffered under the One Nation Without God, the sexual revolution, the freedom to be ME, regardless of the harm that does to others.

In all 26 instances of falls of major nations and empires, the abandonment of a strong ethic of pre-marital chastity and marital fidelity has been the final stage of fall. ONE NATION WITHOUT GOD cannot preserve order, cannot prosper, cannot defend itself, cannot survive.

A recent book by an African American Yale professor, Stephen L. Carter, "God's Name in Vain" reports the national situation: "On one side are those who treat the merest scintilla of religion in our public and political life as an offense against the American idea. On the other are those who believe it to be the responsibility of government to use its power to enforce as laws the moral truths of their religion."

Carter, an exacting and authoritative legal scholar, argues for a "robust participation of the nation's many religious voices in debates over matters of public moment."

He says the direction of the Supreme Court's decisions on religion over the past 50 years, . . ."has become almost silly, a satire on itself, struggling to enforce an historical fantasy -- that it was the power of religion, not the power of the state, that the Founders so feared that they wrote a clause about religion into the First Amendment."

Amen.

If our Supreme Court is not changed quickly to reflect the truth and the deepest beliefs of the majority of the people of this country, we must have a Constitutional Amendment clarifying the matter for good and forever.