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The following information is from the ADF. The ADF is a group of lawyers who are going up against the ACLU and other groups who want to do away with our religious freedoms.
At a time where the National Day of Prayer is being attacked by atheist groups everywhere. We need to understand our rights and freedoms as Christians.Â
Please read the following and leave your comments. Remember, we are protected,”Under the Shadow of His Wing.”
Contrary to popular opinion, the term “separation of
church and state†is found nowhere in the United States
Constitution. While the First Amendment clearly forbids
the creation of a national denomination, it says nothing
about the so-called “separation of church and state.â€
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• The term “separation of church and state†was first used by
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1801,
when he responded to their concerns about state involvement
in religion. Jefferson’s letter had nothing to say about limiting
public religious expression, but dealt with government’s
interference in the public expression of faith.
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• It was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black who first
inserted the term “separation of church and state†into American
jurisprudence in his majority opinion of Everson v. Board
of Education (1947). He wrote: “The First Amendment has
erected a wall between church and state. The wall must be
kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the
slightest breach.â€
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• Black’s opinion was based on a previous misreading of
Jefferson’s 1801 letter in the U.S. Supreme Court decision
Reynolds v. United States (1878). Black also confused his
history. In the opinion, he wrote that the Danbury letter was
“almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect
of the First Amendment.â€
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• The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion; or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the
press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances.†No
mention is made of a “wall between church and state.â€
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• The true purpose of the First Amendment was to prohibit the
federal government from establishing a national church, like the
Church of England, or require that sectarian policy be forced
on an individual state or on the federal government. While the
amendment does recognize a “differentiation between church
and the government, it does not mean that they could not
cooperate with each other.â€
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• In 2001, Daniel Dreisbach, Associate Professor of Justice, Law
and Society at American University, wrote that Black was wrong
to apply the term “separation of church and state†to the First
Amendment. The danger of Black’s argument, according to
Dreisbach, is that it gives constitutional reasons to “separate
religion, religious values, and religious organizations from public
life.†He continues: “If we can’t talk about religion in any
meaningful way in public schools, religious citizens can’t communicate
their faith in public life. [The public square] must be
‘sanitized’ of religious messages, and we are left with a strictly
secular public life.â€
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• The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its allies, along
with other groups hostile to religious freedom, have used
Black’s wording to:
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– Deny churches the right to rent public school facilities for
Sunday worship services.
– Have public displays of the Ten Commandments removed
from public buildings.
– Prohibit students from praying at graduation ceremonies or
football games.
– Threaten fixed income housing project residents with eviction
for displaying signs about prayer in their apartment windows.
– Tell an eight-year-old girl that she cannot pass out handmade
Valentines that read “Jesus Loves You.â€
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• In 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in ruling
in favor of a public display of the Ten Commandments, wrote:
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“The ACLU’s argument contains…fundamental flaws…[It] makes
repeated reference to ‘the separation of church and state.’ This
extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First
Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between
church and state.â€
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For almost four decades, the ACLU’s distortion of
the “separation of church and state†went nearly
unchallenged. In 1994, God raised up a new
organization, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF),
which has taken the ACLU and its allies head-on to
expose this distortion and restore the original intent of
U.S. Constitution with regard to religious freedom.
Since its inception, ADF has helped to win many
groundbreaking cases in defense of religious freedom
and expression. The result is that the so-called
“wall of separation†erected by Hugo Black and
others is slowly starting to crumble.
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With your prayers and support, ADF and its allies
can provide the strategy, training, funding and
litigation needed to tear down the “wall of separation.â€
http://www.alliancedefensefund.org/
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