Wisdom

of the Founding Fathers in America

The Separation of Church and State is a phrase coined later than the writing of the Constitution. It does not exist in the Constitution. What does is a principle that the government shall enact no law that impinges on the free exercise of religion or do anything that establishes a state religion. No one religion gets to be favored or paid for by the state. No religion gets to be so tied with the enforcement arms of the state that it can punish dissent in the civil order. This was a great fear of those Irish who came to this country, who were subject to penal laws and punishments in England prior. It was a great comfort to people like John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian preacher who founded Princeton University because he knew how badly it worked the other way first hand, having been locked up in a Scottish prison in a castle for not conforming to the political succession aligning himself with either catholic jacobians or anglican british. Scottish separatists were mostly presbyterian and they got locked up for being presbyterian.
Religions will try whatever they can to consolidate power and crush dissent even if it requires slander and trumped up allegations. Look at what happened to Jesus and Paul and a lot of disciples. Some civil authorities said 'we don't find any crime in him" and wanted to release them. Others were so ticked off at their preaching they wanted them just dead. Just hated them profoundly. So we see Nero
actually lighting them on fire because he blamed them for anything he could.
Christian tiki torches.
The beauty of our Constitution is that we have this religious freedom guarantee and we also have it coupled with a free speech guarantee, so it is no civil crime to dissent. We have an open society where people may speak their minds and beliefs, and except for a few exceptions, if it doesn't incite a riot for example, you are entitled to your opinion and protected in saying it.
That is why it sometimes is upsetting to watch all these Occupy arrests when they are peacefully
gathering and speaking against the excesses and abuses of capitalism without morality and inequality. This is something that John Paul II actually warned against- the excesses of greed or capitalism gone amuck can create a very unjust society. This is also why a Romney presidency would be aweful and should frighten people.

When a country lets any prevailing religious group or 'ism' control the Rule of Law it is in trouble. It invites abuse and arbitrary oppressions. The Non Establishment of Religion means that no religious group gets to either dictate public policy exclusively or punish in any fashion those who disagree. It means we are a free people, man, woman and child. And anyone championing Freedom should understand the constitutional limits on their power and not abuse the privilege of being in a free society.

People with political ambition will always want to crush dissent, and it is a natural human weakness to self justify by some higher grandiose purpose in the mind of a totalitarian. This is what the political rule of law is supposed to check and protect against. "My ways are higher than your ways" justification for any cruelty one deems fit to inflict is wrong. So wrong it doesn't matter what your ways are if you have to get there by slander and oppression. We do not allow ambitious clerics in this country to lock up people who disagree with them. We don't even allow it if they do it on blogs.