The Separation of Church and State in America Essay

Prayer has been banished from schools and the ACLU rampages to remove â€Å"under God† from the Pledge of Allegiance. Moreover, â€Å"Separation of Church and State† is nowhere found in the Constitution or any other founding legislation. Our forefathers would never countenance the restrictions on religion exacted today. -- Bill Flax, Forbes, 2011 Church and State seem to be two words which are entirely inseparable from each other. Religion in politics and the government has been present since the federal government was first put into place. The issue of†¦show more content†¦After the Civil War, President Grant moved for the state governments, in addition to the federal government, to be kept out of the citizens religious affairs. In 1876 James G. Blaine proposed an Amendment to congress to accomplish this task, extending the religious clauses of the first amendment, and adding a prohibition of aid to parochial schools. Senator Frelinghuysen, who opposed the Blaine amendment, stated that The Blaine Amendment very properly extends the prohibition of the first amendment of the Constitution to the States. Thus the Blaine Amendment prohibits the States, for the first time, from the establishment of religion, from prohibiting its free exercise, and from making any religious test a qualification to office. Senator Eaton of Connecticut, and others with the same objections to the Blaine Amendment, felt that the Constitution prevented congressional involvement in the peoples religious lives, and that the states should be left to make their own decisions on the matter. The Blaine Amendment was proposed to the House, passed, and then defeated in the Senate. It would be proposed to congress and defeated over and ove r again for the next 50 years, but not abandoned until the Supreme Court decided that theShow MoreRelatedThe Necessary Separation of Church and State in America Essay1641 Words   |  7 PagesThe Necessary Separation of Church and State in America On January 1, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Committee of the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut in which he stated: â€Å"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 AmericanRead More Separation of Church and State in Latin America Essay7515 Words   |  31 PagesSeparation of Church and State in Latin America Throughout Latin American history, the Roman Catholic Church has played a tumultuous role, from passive soul saving to aggressive revolutionary actions. 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We have come to the point where we are less inclined to criticize individuals that are different from us and more inclined to embrace eachother’s eccentricities. Those who oppose a separation between church and state claim that because this country was founded on religious principles, our government should continue to base its laws on Christianity. An article entitled, â€Å"Standing up for Church-StateRead MoreChurch-state Relations in America1017 Words   |  4 Pages Church-state relations in America has been widely discussed and hotly debated. One school of thought holds that the church should be absolutely separated from the state, while another holds that the church plays a moral role in state building and its sanctity, without which the state risks falling apart. In my discussion of the church-state relations, I will show that the history of church-state relations has a Constitutional background. 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Bushs Faith Based Initiative and the Separation of Church and State Clause1326 Words   |  6 Pages Bushs Faith Based Initiative and the Separation of Church and State Clause Nowhere in the U.S constitution or any other official documents  does it say that there must be strict â€Å"separation of church and state†.   This clause was used by Jefferson in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut on January 1, 1802 (Truthwalk 1).   After being revised six times by one of our founding fathers, James Madision, the first amendment now states that,   â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting