Decrees Of Separation - IBD - Investors.com

Decrees Of Separation - IBD - Investors.com

Tea Party-favored Republican nominee Christine O'Donnell had the temerity to ask her opponent to cite the provision of the Constitution that separates church and state.

There is, of course, no such passage. Those scoffing law scholars might want to look at the Constitution's unadorned text instead of the judicial activist law review articles that take up so much of their day.

What the Constitution does say, in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" — a restriction imposed upon the state to prevent its interference in religious practice.