“The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.”
– Hugo L. Black, Supreme Court Justice
“We establish no religion in this country. We command no worship. We mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are and must remain separate.”
– Ronald Reagan
“Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine our civil rights.
“Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people and leads to corruption with religion itself. Erecting the wall of separation between church and state, therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Sadly, all that is going to be challenged something fierce.
The challenges are well underway. Forty-one states have enacted abortion bans with only limited exceptions. Thirteen have total bans.*
To see what breaching the wall could lead to, one only has to consider Iran, almost a nuclear power, not to mention the Taliban. Who will succeed Trump in four years? Huckabee?
Trump is an increasingly unstable old man with dreams of power and grandeur. Huckabee is a religious zealot. I’m not sure which is worse.
Interestingly, the founding fathers were more concerned about keeping the state out of the church’s business so the church didn’t become another arm of the state.
Interesting, yes. And how wise that separation has proven to be. There are factions today that need to remember the wisdom of our greatest leaders. We didn’t become a great nation – neither monarchy nor theocracy – on the shoulders of Trumps, Huckabees, and Kavanaughs.
Powerful quotes.
Yes, and the wall served us well … until it was breached in 2022 by the Dobbs decision.
Your lives are fraught with anxiety, you poor bastards (don’t get het up: it’s a sympathetic Ausralianism).
I appreciate the sympathy. Doing my damndest to forget politics exist. Which pretty much requires avoiding all newspapers, national newscasts, and late night talk shows. I still watch a bit of local news, just to be sure life goes on in Colorado.
It’s going to be a long four years …
Justice Black’s wall has lasted many years, not because the First Amendment specifically calls for it, but because it encapsulated the accepted mores and views of the body politic. Reagan’s comment reflects that same sense of commonality. Our imminent (far from eminent) new leaders, know-nothings who think they know it all, may challenge this as they go about re-inventing government, but I’m pretty confident that in the end they will fail.
Nope, no sign of eminence. Just a bunch of good ol’ boys (and girls) playing “government.”
Speriamo.
I don’t want unqualified people running our government just to enrich themselves and boost their own egos. But that’s what I see happening. I hope I’m wrong.