Congress shall make no law...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

- The United States Constitution

For those of you that don't know, this is the First Amendment to the Constitution. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out, that there are five different issues being addressed in this one sentence. If I gave my thoughts on all five issues in this post, it would take me weeks to write, and would probably be to long for any sane person to want to read. So, for the purpose of this post, I am going to share some thoughts the first issue, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, of prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

An establishment is an arranged social order or system. I don't understand why someone as simple as I am, can get this, but the Supreme Court and all the left wing nut jobs in this country can't. If my child prays at school, or if the Ten Commandments are posted in my local courthouse, it does not mean the Federal Government is endorsing or "respecting" any religion. We hear all the time about "Seperation of Church and State". You just read it for yourself. Does our Constitution mention anything about seperation of church and state? The answer is simple. NO!

Now, if the Supreme Court does not allow students, teachers or administrators to pray in school or talk about their faith, they are obviously violating the second part of this sentence. They are prohibiting these people the free exercise of their religion. The same applies to a judge or official that wants to place the Ten Commandments in their place of business. Just because that person may work for the government, and is a Christian and wishes to share their faith, just by displaying the Ten Commandments, it DOES NOT mean the government is endorsing it! We have let too many people try to tell us we should be ashamed of our faith, and tried to tell us we can only practice it in our homes or churches. The Constitution, clearly states that the Government will not prohibit our free exercise. Yet, it happens everyday!

So many peoples lives are affected on a daily basis by extreme decisions that have been made about a sentence that is sixteen words long. Most people don't even know what those sixteen words are. They have only been told that the Constitution demands seperation of church and state. When in fact is says nothing even close to that. This country was founded by; and our founding documents were written by; God fearing, moral and upright men. They simply did not want to be in a situation where the govenment said you HAVE attend this church, pray in this way or be told our "official" religion is, so and so.

One final thing, when ones ability to practice his religion is diminished, it also starts to violate their freedom of speech, which is the very next line of this article.

I encourage everyone to take the time to read the Constitution, find out what it says for yourself. You may be surprised to find, it may not say what you have always been told!