Church and state debate

To the editor:

Leonard Pitts’ recent diatribe against Christine O’Donnell’s answer for separation of church and state in her debate with Chris Coons, “Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state,” and his liberally left-wing view is laughable. When will socialists like Pitts actually read the Constitution?

Pitts’ total disingenuousness at attempting to champion a view that was never in the minds of the framers and attacking the only answer, “It is NOT in the First Amendment” reflects insincerity. Thomas Jefferson, in a private letter, not the Constitution, used the phrase to actually pacify a local church congregation so that they would not think the government was “establishing” a national church, It wasn’t until this mid-century that we see the phrase used again. Hello? NOT in the Constitution.

Even on atheism.com, “That is true, the phrase, ‘separation of church and state’ does not actually appear anywhere in the

Constitution.” (website: About.com). Simply put, “A strict separationist view is not supported by the Constitution.” (Paulsen, see below). Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propagandist said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. It thus becomes vitally important for the state to use all its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

“Ms. O’Donnell’s pithy challenge, ‘Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?’ is actually an excellent shorthand critique of those who should sloppily translate the First Amendment’s protections of religious liberty into incoherent hostility toward religion. And that is no laughing matter.” (Michael Stokes Paulsen is University chair and professor of law at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis; http://www

.thepublicdiscourse.com/2010/10/1920).

Fortunately, the guffaw from the Coons left wing audience is on Pitts now that he has publicly shown his ignorance and lack of reading.

J. Craig Wagner
Kissimmee