On June 26, the President's Religious Liberty Commission delivered its draft report to the President. (Press Release). The 224-page Report (full text) sets out numerous recommendations for various segments of society and government. The Report's Executive Summary concludes in part:
... People often use the metaphor “wall of separation of church and state” to justify excluding religious Americans from equal participation in the public square. But the “wall of separation” phrase does not appear in the First Amendment or anywhere else in the Constitution. What the First Amendment does say about the relationship between religion and the government is that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In practical terms, that means that the government may not officially prefer one religion over another, take over the functions of a church, or coerce religious observance.
Nothing in the First Amendment allows the government to create a “wall” between an individual’s personal faith and our nation’s public life. The idea that it does allow—or even require—a “wall of separation” only took off in the mid-twentieth century, when the Supreme Court began citing Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, written 10 years after the First Amendment was ratified.
One belabored metaphor—often used out of context—cannot support the view that the aim of the First Amendment was to exile the practice of religion from public life. And no Founding document supports that conclusion either....
The concept of a “wall of separation between church and state” can wrongly imply that church and state are opposed to one another and must remain completely separate. In reality, however, church and state strengthen and support one another. Perhaps a better analogy is that religious liberty acts as a bridge between church and state. In other words, when people of faith exercise their religious liberty by living that faith—from praying to serving the poor to treating people with charity to upholding moral standards—they live more fulfilling lives, build vibrant families, bolster our communities, and ultimately, strengthen our nation. In this way, religious liberty isn’t simply an appendage of our society. It is the beating heart of our republic and the lifeblood of America’s success....
The Report is open for public comment for 15 days.