Bill of Rights
No Religious Test Rights
of the Minority
The church must be reminded that it is not the master
or the servant of the state, but rather, the conscience of
the state. It must be the guide and critic of the state and
never its tool. Dr. Martin Luther King
THE BILL OF RIGHTS
The first ten amendments to the Constitution of the United
States of America are known as the Bill of Rights. By beginning
with the following words in the First Amendment the framers
established their primary concern regarding the relationship
of church and state:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
This statement is the foundation for the doctrine of separation
of church and state.
NO RELIGIOUS TEST
The framers were opposed to the establishment of a state religion.
They wanted each citizen to be able to worship freely according
to his or her own conscience. They required specifically in
Article Six of the Constitution that "no religious test
shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or
public trust under the United States." Their intentions
were clear. Religious freedom is not to be merely tolerated
but is an absolute natural right.
This doctrine has gone unchallenged for over 200 years until
religious groups began to erode its meaning in order to allow
the government to use public tax dollars to support private
religious schools and other religious institutions. The clear
lines of separation are being blurred as they seek to distinguish
between the accommodation of religion and the establishment
of religion.
One of the clearest defenses of the doctrine was made by
our first Catholic president in a speech before the Ministerial
Association of Greater Houston (Texas) on September 12, 1960:
I believe in an America where the separation of Church and
State is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the
President (should he be a Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant
minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote, where
no church or church school is granted any public funds or
political preference, and where no man is denied public office
merely because his religion differs from the President who
might appoint him or the people who might elect him. John
F Kennedy
Our founding fathers wanted to avoid the kind wars that
had been fought for centuries in the name of religion:
The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep
forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked
the soil of Europe in blood for centuries. James Madison
RIGHTS OF THE MINORITY
Although our nation is a democracy which is generally ruled
by the will of the majority, the framers added the Bill of
Rights to the Constitution in order to protect the basic human
rights of minorities, to protect the right to function according
to one's own conscience. This is an ancient concept:
It is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature,
that all human beings should worship according to their own
convictions; one human person's religion neither harms nor
helps another. It is not proper to force religion. It must
be undertaken freely, not under pressure. Tertullian 212 AD
We should therefore give both to Christianity and to
all others free facility to follow the religion which they
may desire. Emperor Constantine 313 AD
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