• Judge Samuel B. Kent, "the court is going to have a United States marshal in attendance at the graduation. If any student offends this court, that student will be summarily arrested and will face up to six months incarceration in the Galveston County Jail for contempt of court."

   

• In Missouri, when fourth-grader Raymond Raines bowed his head in prayer before his lunch in the cafeteria of Waring Elementary School in St. Louis, his teacher allegedly ordered him out of his seat, in full view of other students present, and sent him to the principal’s office. After his third such prayer "offense," little Raymond was segregated from his classmates, ridiculed for his religious beliefs, and given one week's detention.

   

• In New York, kindergartner Kayla Broadus recited the familiar and beloved prayer – "God is great, God is good. Thank you, God, for my food" – while holding hands with two students seated next to her at her snack table at her Saratoga Springs school early last year. But she was silenced and scolded by her teacher, who reported the infraction to the school’s lawyer, Gregg T. Johnson, who concluded that Kayla’s behavior was indeed a violation of the "separation of church and state."

"The constitutional separation of church and state" – a reference to the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights – is a phrase Americans hear literally every day from the news media, from legal organizations, from politicians and pundits, and especially from zealous attorneys and judges.

"Separation of church and state" was used by the ACLU to demand that a banner proclaiming "God bless America," erected outside a school shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to honor the 3,000 murdered Americans, must be taken down.

"Separation of church and state" was used to deny a little, handicapped girl the right to read her Bible on the bus on the long trip to school.

"Separation of church and state" was used to take Justice Roy Moore's 10 Commandments monument out of the Alabama Judicial Building, and it is being used right now to challenge the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

The phrase is repeated so often and with such assurance, one would think it is the keystone phrase of the U.S. Constitution.

And yet – the words "separation," "church," or "state" are not found in the First Amendment, nor in any other founding document for that matter.

In fact, the entire "constitutional separation of church and state" is a recent fabrication of activist judges who have ignored the Constitution's clear meaning.

Indeed, says U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, in the stunning November issue of WND's Whistleblower magazine, "There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the 'wall of separation' [between church and state]."