Freep published a commentary on Christine O’Donnell’s recent idiocy on camera where she demonstrated a complete and total lack of knowledge about historical documents and the methods by which people paraphrase them. (Paraphrase is a word that means to explain something with different, possibly easier, words that will still keep the meaning of the original in tact. O’Donnell clearly missed that day in English class.)
O’Donnell shows “fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is. … The First Amendment establishes the separation…”
O’Donnell wasn’t buying it. “The First Amendment does? … So you’re telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase ‘separation of church and state,’ is found in the First Amendment?”
It was a bizarre exchange that permits but two conclusions. One, O’Donnell is frighteningly ignorant, particularly for a woman who claims constitutional expertise and aspires to the U.S. Senate. Or, two, assuming you buy her after-the-fact explanation (she was merely observing that the phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the First Amendment), she is terribly disingenuous.
Or someone on her team suggested she stick to debating semantics to hide the fact that she’s a moron incapable of winning a real debate.
Still, silly as this business is, she has supporters. I see there’s a reward of $1000 being offered to anyone who can find the phrase “separation of church and state” in the American constitution:
O’Donnell called Coons on the carpet, correctly exposing Coons’ misstatements about the First Amendment. Coons claimed that the phrase “separation of church and state” is found in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is not.
When challenged by O’Donnell, Coons then changed his “story” several times, offering several different versions of the First Amendment. In the end, Coons offered yet another mangled misstatement of the First Amendment, to which O’Donnell challenged laughingly “That’s in the First Amendment?” NONE of Coons’ changing versions were an accurate statement of the First Amendment.
That’s because he was paraphrasing over and over again, trying to make you dipshits understand his point. Paraphrasing is also a method of explaining something you’ve read and know without having to memorize the original word for fricking word.
“Any rule that makes religion or religious people unwelcome in any place or any aspect of American life is a violation of the ‘FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION’ guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment,” Moseley explained. “There cannot be ‘free exercise’ with a wall of separation.”
I don’t think the concept of “separation of church and state” is intended to make religious people unwelcome. It’s only to make religious ideology unwelcome in certain arenas of public life.
There is a time and a place to practice your religion and that place and time is not in a public school while school is on. That should be obvious. That place and time should not be while and where the government is making laws that have to suit the whole country, not just the chunk that thinks like you do. Why is that such a hard thing to wrap a head around?
Oh right. Because it requires thinking of others instead of one’s self. It requires awareness and understanding that there is more than one way to think and get through life and still be good and law abiding citizens of the country. It requires sharing.
One Minion's Opinion 