“We can’t constantly adjust the world to suit each individual’s tolerance level. At the same time we can’t shrug off tenets like the separation of church and state.” I cannot blame Daniel Pike, writer of this statement, for his fault. He was simply regurgitating an incorrect thought that has been melted into the great American Pot of ignorance.

Thomas Jefferson coined the “separation” phrase in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, who feared the reincarnation of a State-sponsored church in the newly assembled United States. Jefferson claimed that the wall of separation should be one-directional lest governmental corruption overtake the church, as had occurred in England, but that the influence of the Christian church in government should be encouraged.

The distortion of this principle came in 1947. Supreme Court Justice Black used the phrase, but claimed the wall of separation should be “high and impregnable”, state out of church, church out of state. An incorrect paraphrase of one man determined the verdict of the Everson vs. Ewing Township Board of Education case and countless other religion-affiliated cases since.

The phrase “separation of church and state” cannot be accepted as a “tenet”, Mr. Pike, because it is, in current form, the opinion of one man, and it is not even in the Constitution. Search the entire document thoroughly; you will never find it. I promise. Where is our country headed when laws are based on individual distorted opinion and the nation believes the opinion was law to begin with?

Joshua Gilreath

(270 308-0389

Glasgow, Ky

Freshman