![]() But ultimately, preventing government from interfering with religion is an essential principle of religious liberty. The founders disagreed about the exact meaning of "no establishment" under the First Amendment, and those arguments continue today. Board of Education (1947) Why the separation of church and state matters "The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state," which "must be kept high and impregnable." – Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, Everson v. Today, the establishment clause prohibits all levels of government from either advancing or inhibiting religion. Supreme Court has also said that states must uphold this religious freedom principle. In addition to the First Amendment, each state has separated religion from government, providing protections for religious liberty in their state constitutions. Both the founders' own experiences with religious persecution, and the reality that the United States is a country with people who have a wide variety of beliefs and backgrounds, made it essential to protect all Americans' deeply held beliefs. Jefferson responded, emphasizing that the First Amendment's free exercise and establishment clauses together built "a wall of separation between church and state."įor many people coming to America – then and now – religious discrimination by governments was a part of daily life. Concerned about their status as a religious minority, the Baptist community penned a letter to the president expressing fear about religious persecution. Jefferson immortalized the phrase in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. More commonly, many of the founders, including Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, argued that government compulsion of religion violated a person's natural right to shape their own life according to their convictions. Some argued that it was fine to mandate participation in religious services, if a person could choose which ones they would attend. Though they didn't use the phrase "separation of church and state," the framers of the Constitution debated the extent to which the government should support religion. This influenced American thinking for centuries to come. Williams created a colony where the freedom to worship was a right for all. He believed that mixing the two would cause both to become corrupt. In 1644, Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island and of the first Baptist church in America, called for a "wall or hedge of separation" between the secular world and sacred church. The United States' founders were committed to a government not overly entangled with religion. Where did the separation of church and state come from? The separation of church and state enables all Americans to practice their deeply held beliefs in private and in public. Constitution, but the concept is enshrined in the very first freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." Known as the establishment clause, the opening lines of the First Amendment prohibit the government from creating an official religion or favoring one religion (or nonreligion) over another. The words "separation of church and state" do not appear in the U.S. Where does this phrase come from, and what does it mean? What is the separation of church and state? Opponents say that this phrase never appears in the Constitution and goes too far in taking religion out of public life. ![]() Proponents say this separation is law and must be maintained. ![]() When the role of religion in politics comes up in today's public discourse, the phrase "separation of church and state" is often part of the conversation. ![]()
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