The church and the state govern over two vastly different aspects of the lives of citizens. The first governs the spiritual aspect the second governs everything else. Both exercise a tremendous hold and control over their respective flocks. The Founding Fathers were wise enough to avoid allowing any one body to hold sway over the whole shooting match. Clearly this issue was extremely important the writers of the Constitution as they choose to make the separation of these two bodies amendment number one. Since the amendment has such a noble place, number one, it follows that the thought process of those writers was that this amendment should function not unlike a cornerstone does in any building. To remove the cornerstone, after the building has achieved a certain height, is to watch the building crumble around one's own ears. It's idiotic, at best.

The Founding Fathers were not interested in a government that would dictate to it's people what they must believe in terms of a greater power than was in existence here on Earth. They had no desire to force answers of a theological nature on the people of the U.S. and they were very right not to do so. Such a government would be absolutely totalitarian, against everything that they thought to be just and everything for which this country currently stands. They understood that not only do a great many people believe a great many different things about religion, but also that there were a great many different religions from which they would have to pick the "right" one. A really daunting task when you consider that no iron clad proof exists that there is a "right" one at all.

Somewhere, in the back of the minds of these bright men, must have lingered the thought that at the time of the writing of the Constitution, just as today, there was, and is, no proof of any kind whatsoever that there even was a God. These were bright men and any thinking person knows that belief in any religious dogma is, by definition, blind faith. So to legislate the arenas of imagination and fantasy must have seemed to these wise men a fool's errand and they cleverly and justly avoided the issue and made it the cornerstone upon which to build this nation.

The Constitution, thanks to this First Amendment, disallows the seated President or any other person of power within the government to govern using the will of God as a devise to influence policy. Also, the amendment makes it possible for those of all faiths or of no faith at all to seek justice under the law and to live free within our borders. It lends no special credence to any of the world's many varied dogmas and does not disallow the rejection of all dogmas. If it weren't for this First Amendment we would have a President who, under the right spin doctoring, function as God himself and a nation of homogeneous beliefs and minds locked up tighter than Fort Knox.

Let us not forget that there have, over the years since this document was written, a great many people that have given their lives in support and protection of it and the ideas that it represents. If there was ever a case to made for the idea of separation of church and state, then that would be the most vivid and important. The Constitution was never intended to be shrunk down to any size. Thanks to the "elastic clause" of the Constitution it has only the ability to expand and no ability to contract.

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