In order to argue against the legitimacy of separating church and state in America, many
accommodationists make a variety of false claims about the nature of America's laws and government. The goal seems to be to argue that law and government in America should be blended with religion, preferably Christianity, otherwise their nature or foundations would be damaged. All of these arguments fail, though, because they rely upon misrepresentations and myths that can be shown to be false.
Even some ostensible supporters of church/state separation think America is or was founded as a Christian Nation and this belief is very poplar among Christian Nationalists,
Christian Supremacists and all opponents of church/state separation. The central problem with this claim is its ambiguity: what does "Christian Nation" mean? Christians who make the claim act like they know what they mean, but that's questionable. It seems more designed to express emotion, not empirical facts.
Every year we have state-sanctioned, state-encouraged praying in the form of a "
National Day of Prayer" (NDP). This official recognition of prayer was crated in 1952, around the time that "under God" was inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance and "
In God We Trust" was adopted as the National Motto. The purpose of all three was to establish this country as God's official religious opposition to atheistic communism. Before this, official proclamations of prayer were issued irregularly.
Opponents to church/state separation cite the national motto, "In God We Trust," as evidence that there is not and should not be a strict separation of church and state and that America is supposed to be a Christian Nation. These accommodationists fail to explain why the national motto itself is constitutional or why Americans or the American government should be trusting any particular gods. Even worse, they often use the national motto as a reason for further breaches in separation.
Because of the words “under God,” many regard the Pledge of Allegiance not simply as an expression of patriotism, but also as an expression of religious piety. Furthermore, it has been used by many as evidence that this is a religious nation; not simply in the sense that most people are religious, but rather that the government itself is founded upon religious (typically Christian) principles.
Presidents have, at various times, called upon the nation to observe days of thanksgiving, fasting and/or prayer, but is this an indication that they did not believe in church/state separation? Or is it an indication that imperfect humans have thus far failed to completely implement such separation? Opponents to church/state separation, when they point out the existence of such proclamations, imply that the former interpretation is necessarily true. There are many flaws to this argument.
http://atheism.about.com/od/churchstatemyths/a/NorthwestOrdinanceReligion.htm Opponents of church/state separation cite the Northwest Ordinance to prove that the authors of the Constitution didn't believe in strict separation of church and state. Enacted in 1787 under the Articles of Confederation then again in 1789 under the Constitution, the Northwest Ordinance established a governing structure for the Northwest Territory from the Great Lakes down through the Ohio river valley. Accomodationists say that it also provided for the public funding of religion.
Many have argued against the separation of church and state by pointing to the
Declaration of Independence. They believe that the text of this document supports the position that the United States was founded upon religious, if not Christian, principles, and therefore church and state must remain intertwined in order for this nation to continue properly.
Public funding of chaplains in the military, Congress, and other areas like prisons and the police creates a challenge for church/state separation. The existence of government chaplains doesn't prove that church and state are not or should not be separated, especially if these government chaplains should not exist. Opponents of church/state separation who base their arguments on the existence of government chaplains rarely do much to explain why the state should pay for chaplains at all.
