Gil Smart's Wall of Separation and its ties to the Klan

The Mythical "Wall of Separation": How a Misused Metaphor Changed Church–State Law, Policy, and Discourse

Jefferson's wall separated church and the federal government only. By incorporating the First Amendment non-establishment provision into the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, [Justice Hugo] Black's wall separates religion and civil government at all levels; federal, state, and local.

By extending its prohibitions to state and local jurisdictions, Black turned the First Amendment, as ratified in 1791, on its head.

According to Gil Smart's column this week, he is in favor of a "high and impregnible" wall between church and state.

I can tell this because he echoed Justice John Paul Stevens's 2002 dissenting opinion that our democracy is threatened "whenever we remove a brick from the wall that was designed to separate religion and government."

This was a throwback to Justice Hugo Black's comments in 1947 in Everson v. Board of Education, in which he incorrectly attributed to Thomas Jefferson the concept of 'a wall of separation between church and State' that must be kept 'high and impregnable'.

Personally, I find it difficult to put into law the opinions of two Supreme Court justices, particularly since Justice Hugo Black was an admitted member of the Ku Klux Klan.

The uncomfortable truth is that, for much of American history, the phrase "separation of church and state" and "a wall of separation," have often been expressions of exclusion, intolerance, and bigotry.

These phrases have been used to silence people and communities of faith and to exclude them from full participation in public life.

I certainly hope that Gil will carefully reconsider his promulgation of these words in the future, as I am sure that this was not the intent of his column.