Separation of Church and State is not an Opinion

The Sunday morning news shows (Face the Nation, Meet the Press, This Week) could easily be sub-titled "windbags on parade." I was not really surprised by the level of ignorance, delusion, and old-fashioned stupidity on display this past Sunday. I still found the Easter edition of Face the Nation especially infuriating. Most of the guests I pretty well knew what they were going to say before they ever opened their mouths. It was as predictable as it was worthless. Sally Quinn, however, did catch my attention more than the others. The level of bullshit coming from her was truly amazing. That she would so brazenly present such idiotic opinions as fact was nauseating. It was her portrayal of Separation of Church and that really riled me up.

About thirty minutes into the program that was about the mixing of religion and politics Sally Quinn had this to say:

"SALLY QUINN (The Washington Post): I think that separation of church and state is in the eye of the beholder. And I think if you look at not only what is going on in politics, you will get Cardinal Dolan to say one thing about his view of separation in church and state and-- and we have several different views at this table. We say we have separation of church and state, and yet on our coins it says "In God We Trust." The Pledge of Allegiance is one nation under God. We have-- we have ministers and pastors and Senate chaplain who say prayers in the Senate. The-- the academies and military academies are very religious and have prayer groups and-- and sometimes mandatory prayer groups. And so those are all not separation of church and state, and yet everyone accepts them. So I think that what I have seen in the last five years and what I see every single day is that who-- whatever your point of view, you might-- I mean there are plenty of people, I don't know whether you all think that we are a Christian nation or not, there are plenty of people who are religious who would say this is a Christian nation. Other people will say, as Obama does, this is a nation for all faiths and no faith, so I think that when you talk about separation of church and state, you are not talking about one thing, you are talking about a lot of different attitudes and opinions."

Actually, Sally, everyone does not accept the crap you think to be true. There have been various lawsuits over both "In God We Trust" and "one nation under God" in our Pledge. It should also be noted that both of those were added in the 1950s. That our founders make it quite clear that this is a secular country and set into the constitution the concept of separation of church and state even if they did not use the term explicitly. As I have noted in other posts the only references to religion in our constitution are cautionary (1st Amendment and clause on no religious oaths/qualifications). Those are facts. No amount of delusional puffery and partisan punditry will make them otherwise.