Quote:
Originally Posted by Rhapsody  If it was that simple, there wouldn't be such controversy over it.
If you're going to allow preferential treatment of a religion, which this interpretation would allow, then where does it stop? Can the United States have a de facto established church as long as they don't make it official? I don't think the founding fathers intended for that to happen, but a 'minimalist' interpretation allows it.
Either way, mixing of church and state is a bad idea. There are always winners and losers when that happens, and it's never fair on the losers. |
Up until the early part of the 20th century, it was generally interpreted that gov't should favor no religion over another, rather than favor no religion over any religion. This was, in large part, precipitated by the followers of Thomas Dewey who were in favor of a state-supported and controlled education system vs. the mixed parochial/public system that was in place previously (a system very similar to the voucher systems, where the money follows the child, being put in place in many states.) This was the genesis of the wall between church and state, which somehow did not exist for the ~150 years of the country's history before that.
The bastard child of this wall is the US public education system. Fine thing that turned out to be.
