Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell agree: No separation of church and state

[jefferson_dem]

Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell agree: No separation of church and state

Democratic campaign operatives around the country will tell you privately that it frustrates them that Christine O'Donnell's various eccentricities get so much more media attention than GOP gaffes do in races that Dems view as winnable.

Case in point: O'Donnell is getting a massive amount of attention today because during a debate with Chris Coons, she asked: "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"

But Sharron Angle said something very similar a couple months back and it got almost no national attention. During an interview with Jon Ralston, he confronted her over her 1995 statement that excluding religious schools from Federal funding is un-American and that the separation of church and state is an unconstitutional doctrine. Then this exchange ensued:

RALSTON: The separation of church and state arises out of the Constitution.

ANGLE: No it doesn't, John.

RALSTON: Oh, it doesn't? The Founding Fathers didn't believe in the separation of church and state?

ANGLE: Thomas Jefferson has been misquoted, like I've been misquoted, out of context. Thomas Jefferson was actually addressing a church and telling them through his address that there had been a wall of separation put up between the church and the state precisely to protect the church from being taken over by a state religion. That's what they meant by that. They didn't mean we couldn't bring our values to the political forum.

Whatever the debate over Jefferson's subsequent interpretation, the widely accepted interpretation has been that the intent of the Constitution was to keep church and state separate, and her suggestion that this didn't arise out of the Constitution puts her in O'Donnell territory.

Interestingly, in a general sense, Angle's more eccentric claims have tended to garner less national coverage than those of O'Donnell, who seems to be viewed by the national media as more of a curiosity. What makes this odder is that Angle's race is extremely close and O'Donnell's is widely deemed to be unwinnable. Meanwhile, O'Donnell has issued a statement clarifying her comments:

"In this morning's WDEL debate, Christine O'Donnell was not questioning the concept of separation of church and state as subsequently established by the courts. She simply made the point that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution. It was in fact Chris Coons who demonstrated his ignorance of our country's founding documents when he could not name the five freedoms contained in the First Amendment."

Only two more weeks to go. It has been quite an election season.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/10/sharron_angle_and_christine_od.html

[Deep13]

1. Huh. Here's Jefferson:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and 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 the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802


Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.

-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom


I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789


They believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion.

-Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800


Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

[Gman]

2. The RSCC wrote her off immediately

and they don't care who takes the pot shots at her, hence the focus.

[bpj62]

3. Jefferson

It is interesting to note the date of the letter which is written during Jefferson's first term in office. He clearly is citing his belief in the separation clause of the 1st amendment of the constitution which had been ratified by all 13 states in 1789. These people clearly do not understand the constitution. They all want America to become a Christian Theocracy.