Friday, August 9, 2002By Jon Dougherty
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
The memory of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence, has been abused by liberals and activist federal judges for decades to stifle religious freedom. Trouble is, now that we know this, legal experts doubt much will change, proving once again that liberalism is to truth what an adulterer is to marital fidelity.
On Monday, the Washington Times published some details contained in a new book that examines Jefferson's "wall of separation between church and state" thesis.
Based on the author's conclusions, respected scholars agree that our third president's religious views have not only been misquoted and misrepresented, but probably ignored altogether.
"New research on [Jefferson's] 'wall of separation' between church and state shows that Jefferson never intended it to be the iron curtain of today, which instead was built on anti-Catholic legal views in the 1940s," said the paper.
"What we have today is not really Jefferson's wall, but Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black's wall," said American University professor Daniel Dreisbach, whose forthcoming book explores how Jefferson coined the "wall" metaphor.
Justice Black was avidly anti-Catholic – views "learned in the Ku Klux Klan" and which, no doubt, "influenced his 1947 ruling that the First Amendment created a 'high and impregnable' wall between religion and government," said the Times. Black first cited the "wall of separation" in the high court's Everson decision, which forbade New Jersey from spending state education funds on religious education.
The phrase itself comes from a Jan. 1, 1802, letter Jefferson wrote to a Massachusetts-based Baptist group, and was only meant to reassure them that the federal government could not – and would not – tell them how to run their religious lives.
"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 the 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," Jefferson wrote.
There is nothing to suggest that Jefferson ever meant for his "wall" metaphor to be construed by latter-day legal eagles to mean a total ban on any public displays of religion. And yet, how many federal courts have used Justice Black's erroneous interpretation of the third president's "wall of separation" allegory to justify rulings which – ironically and unconstitutionally – prohibit "the free exercise" of religion also guaranteed by the First Amendment?
I'm not talking about states using tax money to finance religious school vouchers. I'm talking about groups like the ACLU successfully suing in federal court to prohibit local townspeople from erecting a display of Jesus, Joseph and Mary in a public park at their own expense during Christmas.
I'm talking about federal judges ruling against communities who want to post, "In God We Trust" on their own town halls or in their own city squares – you know, since our money is printed with that motto.
I'm talking about school children who want to voluntarily pray to God and say the Pledge of Allegiance during class, since even Congress is "allowed" to begin each session with a prayer.
I'm talking about public demonstrations against abortion clinics on religious grounds.
I'm talking about college campuses giving equal time to Christian worshippers as they give to those who seek to denigrate Christ.
There have been some victories for constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom, but we still have a long way to go to reverse 60 years worth of liberal activism and bad case law – each of which are based on faulty and bigoted thinking.
It will take liberals, federal judges and Supreme Court justices erecting a "wall of separation" between their personal opinions and the law of the land before we can right this Jeffersonian wrong.
Jon E. Dougherty is a staff reporter and columnist for WorldNetDaily, and author of the special report, "Election 2000: How the Military Vote Was Suppressed."
