Threat of theocracy: Will one religious outlook dominate U.S. secular policy? by VB Price

The prospect of one religious outlook dominating secular policy in America deeply worried the founders of our Constitution. While most founders professed religious faith, they understood that the tyranny of one religion over all others constituted a pernicious form of oppression, as anyone familiar with the religious brutalities of European history would attest. That’s why the Constitution’s First Amendment has what is known as the “establishment clause,” which forbids an official, or unofficial, state religion in America.

Nowhere in the Constitution are the words “separation of church and state” found. They are unnecessary. The establishment clause states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

When one religious point of view has political dominance in lawmaking circles, it threatens the free exercise of all other religions and spiritual points of view. The founders wanted nothing to do with such a theocratic setup, in which one religion or coalition of religious persuasions made laws favorable only to that point of view.