Your view: Religion and politics

Today I watched one news channel and read two daily newspapers. I counted over 40 articles about religion and/or politics. I got to thinking about the separation of church and state. It seems like most people think the first amendment says should there be separation of church and state, in fact the first amendment does not contain have the words separation, church or state. The phrase "separation of church and state" was used by Thomas Jefferson in a letter of the Danbury Baptist Convention in 1802 explaining that the first amendment said that government would not establish a national religion or dictate how the people should worship God.

I checked the religion and political parties of our presidents. I found of the 43 presidents, that there were 11 different religions and six different political parties. President Bush is a Republican and a Methodist (former Episcopalian).

Our present Congress is represented by five different religions and three political parties.

The nine Justices of the Supreme Court have four different religions and have been appointed by two political parties.

The 50 state governors are all Democrats or Republicans, with 11 religious affiliations. Governor Blunt is a Republican and attends a Baptist church. No cats were injured in the writing of this article.

Leon Edwards