Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom

 

I had never read this before...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Statute_for_Religious_Freedom

I love how Thomas Jefferson worded it, (emphasis mine)

"the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which in common with his fellow-citizens he has a natural right"

and later,

"that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities."

It seems that more and more "Separation of church and state" makes people do just that, to renounce their religion opinions.  The whole "you can't be religious in office" argument appears to go against Jefferson's basic ideals. 

Alot of people call Jefferson the father of "Separation of Church and State" because he coined that term in a letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1802, but in this statute, he strongly affirms that religious beliefs "in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities".  It took me a minute to realize that "civil capacities" is referring to actions "in office".

In such plain ways, he is saying that our nations craze of requiring politicians to "set asside their religion" to take office is "an infringement of natural right".  - Wow.