A good way to start might be to read the actual wording of the amendment, which O'Donnell's critics self-evidently haven't done, judging from the way they misstate its contents while neglecting to quote specific language. She is quite correct in suggesting that "separation of church and state" doesn't appear there, nor is such a construction justified by the well-documented history of the amendment.
What the First Amendment does say is that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" -- the "respecting" part being important -- a phrase that had a definite meaning for the nation's founders.
This stemmed from the fact that various states at that time had "established" churches (like the Anglican church in Britain), which signified an official church supported by tax money and exercising certain legal privileges, while other states had no such establishments and didn't want them.
When the First Amendment was drafted, Massachusetts and Connecticut both had established (Congregational) churches. These continued long after the Bill of Rights was adopted -- the Connecticut establishment lasting until 1818, that in Massachusetts until 1833. As the dates suggest, the existence of these churches was in no way affected by passage of the First Amendment.
In still other states -- most notably Virginia -- there were no such restrictive provisos at the era of the Constitution."I do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by divine inspiration."
Because of this great diversity in religious practice, there arose concerns that the new federal government might try to impose a "national" religion, overriding the customs of the several states. It was in response to this that James Madison in the First Congress (June 1789) proposed what would become the First Amendment. This said, among other things, that no one's rights under the new government would be abridged for reasons of religion, "nor shall any national religion be established."
This wording would be refined in conference committee among members of the House and Senate, which included Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, both from Connecticut, a state with an established church. This produced still more sweeping language, saying Congress shall make no law "respecting an establishment of religion," meaning Congress couldn't adopt any law whatever pertaining to the subject. It couldn't, that is, impose a national establishment, but it also couldn't interfere with the established churches in the states that had them.
So the "wall of separation" then erected wasn't between government and religion, but between the federal government and the states. This was the point Thomas Jefferson would make in 1802 in hisletter to the Danbury Baptists, saying that via the First Amendment the American people had prevented "their legislature" -- Congress -- from interfering in matters of religion.
He re-emphasized it in his second
inaugural, saying he had left religion "to the discipline of state"
or religious societies, and in 1808, asserting that as no power over
religion had been given the "general government," it "must thus rest
with the states" as far as any human authority could wield it.
It's also worth noting that, even at the federal level, there was then
no strict separation between government and religion as modern
secularists define it -- witness the existence in Congress of
tax-supported prayers, chaplains and Thanksgiving proclamations,
practices that of course continue to this day.
In sum, liberal teachings on this subject are a farrago of ignorance,
bias and disinformation. Christine O'Donnell knows whereof she speaks
about it, as her opponents all too clearly don't.
M. Stanton Evans is the author of "The
Theme is Freedom: Religion, Politics, and the American Tradition" (Regnery)
and a longtime contributor to Human
Events, where a longer version of this piece originally appeared.