Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

The separation of church and state and religious freedom are two things that set this nation apart from any other. One of the main reasons that this nation was colonized was the fact that any one could come here and practice their religion freely without any pressure from the government. But now some would say that this country has gone back on what it was founded on and is letting there be some influences of the religion in our government. When it comes to issues of gay marriage and private school vouchers there is religious influence in our government that doesn’t need to be there. Church and state have been separated for a reason and it should stay that way in order to prevent conflict of all kinds.
“The legitimate powers of government reach actions only” Thomas Jefferson (1802). This means that the government shall never discriminate on anyone based on what they believe just the things that they do if they are harmful. The separation of church and state has been a part of our country ever since the country was founded in 1776. The reason for the separation of church and state is that the founding fathers wanted religious freedom and wanted anyone who came here to be happy and practice whatever religion they wanted to. By having people here from so many backgrounds that practice so many religions the only way to not offend anyone was for the government to be neutral and not have religion influence any decisions that were made in the country so that no religion could say that they made a decision because it was based on their religion. If the government were to let a certain religion influence decisions it would cause people of another religion to feel like they were excluded because maybe a decision based on a certain part of one religion would be opposite in another religion. This is why there is no religious influence in the government so that everyone in our country is included in all decisions and they aren’t based on something so controversial as...