The Separation of Church and State

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101902501.html

God, I'd hope I'd never have to write anything about this.  I thought it would be common sense to ANYONE who has grown up in America that there is a separation between church and state within our government.  Apparently, it's too difficult to also remember all of our freedoms guaranteed by the first amendment, at least beyond speech (by the way, it's speech, religion, assembly, press, and petition, in no particular order).  Why not, I'll just post what the first amendment is, aka the easy amendment.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There you go.  Granted -- the exact words "separation of church and state" do not appear within the language of the constitution anywhere, but it's precisely what it means.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

-- Congress cannot make any laws about (favoring) one established religion over another.
-- Congress cannot make any laws infringing upon one's exercise of religion


Therefore -- Creationism cannot be taught in public schools because it specifically teaches the Christian creation myth (I guess Abrahamic in general, but I'd be hard pressed to find an American supporter who wouldn't gush about Jesus).  Intelligent design was revealed to mostly be a "godless" version of creationism (God did it, but we can't call him that).

As a fellow Catholic to Christine O'Donnell I am appalled on so many levels.
-- A catholic being unaware of the separation of church and state -- The nation was largely founded and run by protestants for most of its history, and probably would've preferred to keep it that way.  Catholics had to create their own school system (of which I was a part) to make sure their underfunded districts got proper education, and there has only been one Catholic President (JFK), and only a handful more candidates (Al Smith in 1928 and John Kerry in 2004) on major tickets.
-- Creationism?  Really?  We aren't evangelical ... we don't take the Bible literally.
-- Are you trying to appeal to crazies on purpose?  That'll work for primaries, but crazies don't usually cross party/ideological lines.
-- So you're running for Senate (congress) yet you don't know what you can and cannot do as a Senator?  Maybe I'll go run for doctor or rocket scientist.  Clearly we have just as much idea about what we'd be doing in our respective fields.

ooh, and how about that fancy page break, eh?  classy stuff.

-- Knuttel