https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/establishment_clause
Here is a little primer on the establishment clause.
The whole point of the Secular Republic is that there is no promotion or discouragement of any religion. That way, we don't see a situation like we saw before the constitution, with Jews and Catholics denied civic status in certain states, and credulous people falling victim to religious craze after religious craze in what later became known as the Burned over District.
And the fuckers who wrote the constitution think you're a palatine boor.
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.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson
“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.
[
Letter objecting to the use of government land for churches, 1803]”
― James Madison
“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Mohammedan] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
[
Adams submitted and signed the Treaty of Tripoli, 1797]
“Every new & successful example therefore of
a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that
religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
[
Letter to Edward Livingston, 10 July 1822 - Writings 9:100--103]
“Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations. The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles. The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S.”
If you picked up more than a single book every day, you might learn about the history of your nation, and what the men who founded it did so in service of. Then you would avoid sounding a fool in the 21st century, when, unlike them, you have instant access to all of their writings, along with the works of the giants they toddled upon.
