What Does Seperation Of Church And State Mean To You?

nice poll and avatar!

it really puzzles me that since marriage is a sacrament of the Church.

how does any gov think they can dictate whom you can administer the sacrament of marriage to?




Marriage IS a religious event.

you want just the state, get a civil union.

Thanks!

Yea I understand what you mean.

I've puzzled about that one for years now

anyone can have a ceremony and say they are married, that is not the issue.

the issue is being legal recognized as a married couple and all that comes with that.

I should have clicked both equally but I clicked other.


Religion shouldn't dictate Law and Law shouldn't dictate Religion.

It means: Churches applying for 501(c)3 status is illegal according to the Constitution.

actually, there is more.

obumfack has said he will force the church to marry practicing sodomists -
the people who refer to themselves as gay.

that's the rub

there should be nothing legal or illegal about it

however, any two people should be able to get a legal civil union - regardless of whether sex is involved in their relationship or not - life partners

they should be separate issues which can be combined - religious marriage + civil life partners

do you have a link for that?

I personally have not seen that statement.

do people in civil unions get the same rights and benefits as married couples?

I agree

once they obtain a 501(c)3, they submit themselves to the authority of the government rather than God

I'm not saying what is but rather how I see it should be.

Marriage should be purely religious/spiritual and have nothing to do with legal 'rights', that's what civil unions should be for.

State must stay out of religious matters.

The puritans and others that started this country didn't want a state-run theology.

So plain and simple would be "state must stay out of religious matters."

Boehner has often said Congress is working to remove marriage tax benefits and marriage representation in government.

yeah and your opinion makes a whole lot of sense to me.

I was just wondering what it is currently.

I thought it was seperation of "church FROM state"?

Good replies so far..sorry I havn't been back in a while, I got busy here at work. I will be back when I get some free time. Probly after lunch.

Not sure - good question

Yea, I voted for Both

Other.

It means what Thomas Jefferson explained it meant when he wrote that letter to his former church. They asked him, as President, to intervene on their behalf against their individual state's law. He said he could not. In his day when he wrote that many of the states had their own laws regarding religion. Some even required membership in a particular denomination just to run for public office. Each state was different.

The Federal government was structured to be loose enough to hold the union of different sovereign states together. So, if one state wanted to require this religion and the other didn’t that was fine. That continued well after the constitution was ratified by the several states. What Thomas Jefferson meant when he wrote the words “wall of separation between church and state” was that he as President of the Federal government could not intervene in what was clearly a state matter. If they wanted to change their laws regarding religion they would have to do it themselves through their own state legislatures because the federal government was constructed, through the first amendment, specifically to limit that authority over the states.

The separation of Church and State is simply this: The State shall not establish a religion to which we all must bow down to...worship is up to the individual and the "government" cannot intervene...

Very interesting. If that is the correct interpretation, I owe a guy in the Oklahoma thread an apology, because OK would be in the right to put the 10 commandments above their capitol building...I think it was..

Oklahoma would have that right if I understand you right???

Re-read the first amendment please. The limitation is on congress making laws, not the individual states. Although I would agree, especially in today's insane world, I don't want even the states making laws of a specifically religious nature.

Very interesting...I didn't know this. Our founders were smart: they realized that there were always going to be fundamental differences between the states and respected the right of those states to largely govern themselves with minimal federal intervention. Can you imagine what they'd say if they could see what we've become?

From the library of congress: [link to www.loc.gov]

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut.

Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. my duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & 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 & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.

Actually, they'd turn it on our federal overlords. They defeated one king...they could do it again.

Though it would be interesting to see how the world would be if each spiritual or religious belief system had their own country/nation.