( – promoted by buhdydharma )
(Cross-posted from The Free Speech Zone)
The exchange came in a debate before an audience of legal scholars and law students at Widener University Law School, as O’Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coons’ position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.
Coons said private and parochial schools are free to teach creationism but that “religious doctrine doesn’t belong in our public schools.”
“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” O’Donnell asked him.
When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O’Donnell asked: “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?”
Her comments, in a debate aired on radio station WDEL, generated a buzz in the audience.
“You actually audibly heard the crowd gasp,” Widener University political scientist Wesley Leckrone said after the debate, adding that it raised questions about O’Donnell’s grasp of the Constitution.
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do not pass “GO”, do not collect $200, go directly to FAIL.
if they could implant a human brain in her. They’re too small to fit in a mouse skull but there is plenty of room in hers…
This is akin to George W. Bush using the Dred Scott case litmus test in the 2nd presidential debate in 2004.
Since the phrase “separate of church and state” does not appear verbatim in the Constitution, those Christian Nationalists say it isn’t there. This is the same sort of selective fundamentalism they use on the Bible applied to the Constitution.
She isn’t the first to say this and won’t be the last. She thinks she scored big because she wasn’t talking to the audience, she was talking to her fellow theocrats.