Thanksgiving – A Violation of Church and State?
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Is the government’s observance of Thanksgiving a violation of the separation of church and state? –
Chuck Norris at Town Hall comments Forget for a moment that nearly every president since George Washington
(and the Continental Congress before him) has given Judeo-Christian
proclamations for Thanksgiving (except between 1816 and 1861) and also
has declared other national days of fasting and prayer. Secularists,
such as the author of the editorial, get almost giddy every time they
highlight that Thomas Jefferson rejected the notion of proclaiming
Thanksgiving spirituals and prayers. But the truth is Jefferson was far
from the modern-day secularist they make him out to be.
The phrase "separation of church and state" actually comes from a
letter Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Danbury Baptists. He told
them that no particular Christian denomination was going to have a
monopoly in government. His words, "a wall of separation between Church
& State," were not written to remove all religious practice from
government or civic settings, but to prohibit the domination and even
legislation of religious sectarianism.
Proof that Jefferson was not trying to rid government of
religious (specifically Christian) influence comes from the fact that
he endorsed the use of government buildings for church meetings and
services, signed a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians that allotted
federal money to support the building of a Catholic church and to pay
the salaries of the church’s priests, and repeatedly renewed
legislation that gave land to the United Brethren to help their
missionary activities among the American Indians.