The news is out: Christine O’Donnell, Republican candidate for US Senate to represent Delaware (her third attempt), seemed to suggest in a debate that the Constitution does not make reference to the separation of Church and State. The audience had a good laugh. The video is all over the place:
YouTube (extended; includes her position on Intelligent Design – not be be confused in her mind with creationism)
But, you know what…she’s actually correct. We should all know that the Constitution does not contain the words “separation of Church and State” or anything close to such a phrase. Thomas Jefferson used those specific words only in a letter in 1802 when he was president, years after the ratification of the US Constitution. O’Donnell’s opponent, Chris Coons, did what most people typically do in this situation – he quoted the “Establishment Clause” of the Bill of Rights (First Amendment) which famously prohibits the federal government from establishing a religion or preventing the “free exercise thereof.” Nothing really about “separation,” right? By its very nature, government (federal, state or local) could not possibly operate without somehow intersecting (and potentially interfering) with religious freedom and exercise.
So why are we laughing? She’s correct, isn’t she? Of course she is not correct. All fair-minded people know that the Constitution is silent on MANY topics and that we have spent over 220 years interpreting, amending and understanding the intent of the document and its purpose. We also know that this process has established some very strong “knowns” such as the right to a fair trial, the right to own private property, and equal protection under the law. Institutions and ideas that are so strong that “we the people” consider them bedrock principles in this country. The “separation of Church and State” is one of those; there may be disagreement as to what it actually means, but there is generally no debate that it is not a “founding” principle. So, we laugh when we hear someone question its existence.
But no one should be laughing. This little incident, which will be “spun” by the O’Donnell-Palin wing of the Republican Party into a comment “taken out of context,” actually points to something truly not laughable….that there are people running around (and running for office) thinking that because The Constitution does not specifically say it, there is not a requirement for separation. Their logic has been used to infiltrate school boards and local governments in an attempt to push Intelligent Design and other religious concepts into school curricula and scientific “debates.” Since “separation” does not exist, a government should be able to allow for the equal treatment of these topics. People who make this argument cannot (and will not) tell the difference between scientific theory and religious principle; and they do not acknowledge that a proper “wall” does exist between a priest and public school teacher.
We need to stop laughing. We need to be concerned. O’Donnell can be ignored as a “wing nut,” but not the rest of them.
Posted by Matt S 
Status Mundi 