Rapture Threat Level: ORANGE

Below are some great quotes concerning the separation of church and state by Robert H. Jackson, a respected American lawyer and jurist from the 1940s-1950s. His big claim to fame was his role as chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremburg Trials at the end of World War II. For movie buffs out there, he was played by Alec Baldwin in the 2000 television film Nuremburg.

I just felt like posting them for your contemplation, given today's political climate in North America, and what I perceive to be the slowly expanding and insidious influence of certain religious groups currently in both Canadian and American political life.

As the old saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions...

NOTE: Any italics or boldface are my own, and not the author's

"[T]he effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things which could directly or indirectly be made public business, and thereby be supported in whole or in part at taxpayers' expense. That is a difference which the Constitution sets up between religion and almost every other subject matter of legislation, a difference which goes to the very root of religious freedom[...] This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because it was first in the forefathers' minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, and its strength is its rigidity. It was intended not only to keep the states' hands out of religion, but to keep religion's hands off the state, and, above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public policy or the public purse." - dissent in Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)

"It is possible to hold a faith with enough confidence to believe that what should be rendered to God does not need to be decided and collected by Caesar." - From the dissent in Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952)

"The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion - except for the sect that can win political power." - From the dissent in Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952)