Separation of church and state. I continue to hear this phrase as Republicans are moving legislation this session that authorizes school districts to hire chaplains in schools, offer an elective course in biblical literacy as part of literature class, defining release time for religious instruction during school hours, and school choice policies giving parents freedom to enroll in religious education.
Messages I receive as a legislator include, “You should learn about the separation of church and state,” or “that’s not constitutional because of separation of church and state.”
So, let’s have a discussion about the idea of the separation of church and state being written into our Constitution.
The truth is, it’s not.
What the First Amendment of our US Constitution actually says is, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Thomas Jefferson is the Founding Father who actually first used the phrase. He was responding to a letter from the Danbury Baptist Church, which expressed concern about not being the preferred denomination of the Connecticut government. Jefferson responded to their concern, writing, “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.”
To use Jefferson’s metaphor, it was a wall to keep the state out of the church, not to keep the church out of the state.
When the First Amendment was written, many of the states had already established state churches. The founders were not concerned about that but instead were concerned about the federal government taking over the churches, as had been done in England and other countries around the world at the time.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court has weighed in on the phrase “separation of church and state.” In the case of Lynch v. Donnelly regarding the public display of a nativity scene, the Court stated:
“The concept of a ‘wall’ of separation between church and state is a useful metaphor but is not an accurate description of the practical aspects of the relationship that in fact exists. The Constitution does not require complete separation of church and state; it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.”
Christianity and Judeo-Christian morals heavily influenced the founding of our country and the framing of the Constitution. At the time, Christians dominated our government, and members of the clergy have been, and remain, free in this country to participate in policy debates on any subject. In fact, until the middle of the 20th century, it was common practice for pastors to preach a sermon on the Sunday before an election, advising parishioners on the best candidates that fit their church’s beliefs.
The Left in this country continues to misread our founding documents and wants to silence moral influence in our public square and in our government. The extreme left does not believe our rights come from God – but let’s read what the Declaration of Independence actually says; “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
William Penn, one of the Founding Fathers, expressed a clear understanding of this bedrock principle when he said, “If we are not governed by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants.”
John Adams, our second President of the United States, made a clear distinction between his own Christian faith and the government he was trying to set up when he stated, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry would break the strongest chords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The truth is, radicalists have been attempting to build this imaginary wall in America for many years. They want to build a wall that separates people of faith from our government, and that is not at all what our country is fundamentally.
In the last ten years, these attacks have culminated in an ideology that children can believe that they may be born in the wrong bodies and then, if they want, should be able to change those bodies physically and chemically in opposition to their God-given biology. If you visit the capitol in Des Moines, you will see a stark and clear divide on these different philosophies and these different ideas of God governing our moral directives. This is clear when you realize that many of the defining moral laws that have recently been passed were 100% partisan in nature!
The fundamental right to express religion in public schools in the United States is rooted in the First Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees both the free exercise of religion and the prohibition of government establishment of religion. This creates a delicate balance between protecting individual religious expression and not establishing a religion.
We are seeing that delicate balance discussed now with polices currently at the Iowa Statehouse.
Students have the right to express their religious beliefs in public schools, such as through prayer, wearing religious attire, or discussing their faith, if these actions do not disrupt the learning environment or infringe on the rights of others. However, schools, as government entities, must remain neutral on matters of religion. This means school staff cannot promote or endorse a specific religion, nor can they coerce students into participating in religious activities.
There have been landmark Supreme Court cases addressing this topic. For example: Tinker v. Des Moines (1969): Established that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”
With this proper understanding of the relationship between government and religion, Iowa Republicans are advocating for school districts to hire chaplains in schools in the same way the federal government hires chaplains for Congress and other governmental offices.
We are advocating that public schools offer an elective course in biblical literacy as part of literature classes, in the same way that other states already do.
We are advocating for students to be allowed to leave school during school hours for religious instruction during school hours, as the Supreme Court supported in Zorach v. Clauson.
And we are advocating for school choice policies giving parents freedom to enroll in religious education without being penalized for their religious choices.
Our rights are solely derived from God, and He wants us to be involved in our governments. There should never be a separation of church and state, in the way it is so often misquoted today. There should only be a system that keeps the government’s hands out of the business of the church.
For the party that rose fears about Sharia law on US soil, they sure are quick to be blind to implementing their own version of it. This land is home to people of many different religions, and a large amount of people who aren’t religious at all. We are not a theocracy, nor have we ever been. Shame on Rep. Fett for pushing this dangerous rhetoric.