This is the long version of a shorter video, for those who want me to explain in detail. There is widespread misunderstanding about the so-called, [quote]"constitutional separation of church and state"[unquote], that has allowed for a huge amount of bullying over the latter part of the 20th century through the present time. Is this really in the U.S. Constitution? Let's find out. You know, the U.S. Constitution is actually a very short, succinct document. Here's a little booklet I have. The original Constitution is just this much of it. The twenty-five amendments to the Constitution is just this much of it. You can do this. You can just read the Constitution, all of it, and it won't take you that long. Here is what the United States Constitution recites on the matter: First Amendment, part of what has become known as the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." That is what it says, and that is all it says on the matter. Do you remember your American history and government that you learned in high school? The U.S. Constitution defines three branches of the U.S. government, the Executive branch, which is the president, the Legislative branch, which is Congress, and the Judicial branch, which is the Supreme Court and other federal courts. Congress makes the laws, the courts interpret the laws Congress makes, and the president doesn't do either. Take note of that final point. "The president doesn't do either." We will come back to that later. Do you remember your English grammar that you learned in high school? We don't need to be lawyers. I am not a lawyer. I am an early-retired electrical/computer engineer and now homeschool daddy. Let's just read and parse the text, word by word, to make sure we get it right: "Congress," noun, subject of verb, and the subject of the whole sentence, "shall," auxiliary verb, "make," verb, forming a verb phrase, future tense, active voice, "no," quantifying determiner, "law," noun, forming a noun phrase, the object of the verb, "respecting," verb participle used as a qualifier, "an," indefinite article, "establishment," noun, object of the participle, forming a participial phrase, "of," preposition, "religion," object of the preposition, forming a prepositional phrase, "or," coordinating conjunction, "prohibiting," verb participle, "the" definite article, "free," adjective, "exercise," noun, "thereof," adverb, forming a participial phrase. Let's stop there. The subject is "Congress." It is not a [quote]"establishment clause"[unquote]. The subject is also not the courts, not the public schools, not a government employer, not a public monument or building, not anything else. It is "Congress." The object is "law." The verb is "make." "Congress shall make no law...." The rest of the sentence is a subordinate, or dependent, clause, subordinate to "Congress shall make no law," which means it all pertains to Congress making a law. The subordinate, or dependent clause is [quote]"respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"[unquote]. That is not an independent clause, according to the English sentence grammar. The question at hand is, did Congress make a law? If not, then we are done. If so, then we would examine that law, which Congress made or is in the process of making, to see if that law violates this constitutional requirement, specified in the dependent clause. Does the law respect a religion? Yes or no. Does the law prohibit free exercise thereof? Yes or no. But if Congress made no law, then we are done. There is nothing to argue about. Can the courts read English? Can the atheistic and other special interest groups read English? Where is the phrase, [quote]"separation of church and state"[unquote]. It is not in the constitution. Anywhere. There is no [quote]"constitutional separation of church and state"[unquote] in the constitution. Where did we get it from, then? We got it from a private letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. The Baptists at the time were a radical minority and were persecuted by the Congregationalists, who in turn traced their roots to the early American Puritan settlers, who legislated church attendance, matters of Christian doctrine, and so on, in order to punish and eliminate those who did not line up with their established church doctrine and practices. This continued well into the late eighteenth century. Thomas Jefferson was president of the United States when they wrote the letter to him in 1801. The Baptists wanted a sympathetic reply from the president, which they expected to get, since he was a deist and not even a Christian, that the government would treat them with equal favor. They knew the president had no legislative power. Read what they wrote. They knew the constitution. They said, "Sir, we are sensible that the president of the United States is not the national legislator...." All the president has is veto power, which was *intended* only as a check and balance to prevent Congress from legislating matters having to do with the Executive branch, like, "let's make a law that the president can't do this thing and that anymore." Jefferson wrote back to them sympathetically. Buried in his private letter he commented, providing his private opinion of the First Amendment, saying, "thus building a wall of separation between Church & State." And there you have it. President Jefferson, with no legislative or judicial authority, made a personal, private comment to the Connecticut Baptists in reply, in a personal letter. And, somehow, most people assume that the comment is in the U.S. Constitution. I guess the idea is that if you say it enough times it must be true, right? So now, after all the unconstitutional bullying by atheistic and other special interest groups is said and done, you actually have a constitutional right to practice your religion in your capacity as a public schoolteacher, a government employee, or anything else. Read from the Bible, pray to God, share the gospel, put a religious monument on government property, do whatever you want, knowing that the U.S. Constitutional Bill of Rights protects your right to do so. By preventing Congress from making a law for or against it. For example, say you're a public school teacher and you choose to teach biblical creation based on the Bible as an authority. I mean, biblical, young-earth, six-days, creation, not this silly, secularized [quote]"intelligent design"[unquote] facade that takes God out of it. Now you can see that the U.S. Constitution actually protects your right to do so. [Quote]"Congress shall make no law"[unquote], right? Did Congress make a law either forcing you or preventing you from doing so? If not, then we are done. The Bill of Rights is satisfied. No law enforcement authority or court of law can touch you, because you did not break a law. Now, I realize that if you are an employee of your local school system, the school board may dictate to you a certain curriculum to teach and textbooks to use. But that is different matter. The point is that you are protected against religious discrimination. If you are handed a textbook to use, which has some pseudoscience about us evolving from apes, and you say to your class, "This is stupid, kiddies. Use your critical thinking skills, then read your Bibles and see. It all started with Adam and Eve some 6000 years ago," then any civil rights lawsuit about that should end in your favor. The courts should protect you, not stop you. Remember, "Congress made no law" regarding this, right? So, the Bill of Rights is satisfied. You broke no law; therefore, there is nothing legally to say about it. Then, if the school board and the entire public school teaches according to a particular religious creed, because the majority of voting taxpayers in the school district prevailed, then what of it? For example, if the prevailing majority view is of creation, not evolution, which it predominantly is, then atheistic evolutionist parents are free to take their children out of the public school and homeschool their children themselves, teaching them Darwinian or Neodarwinian evolution, that men evolved from apes, or any other fairy tale that suits their atheistic religious beliefs. The constitutional mandate is that Congress must make no law legislating it one way or another. That's the [quote]"wall of separation between church and state"[unquote], if you will, and I think that Jefferson would have agreed if he watched this video. Congress makes [quote]"no law"[unquote] and therefore the government does not interfere. At all. I want to make it clear that I am not endorsing the concept of a secular state, and the fact that the U.S. Constitution and other founding documents give no glory to the Lord Jesus and make no reference to the Word of God. But given that is the way it is here in the U.S., then it should be fairly applied without discrimination, and without reverse discrimination, meaning that the atheistic minority should not have the upper hand over the professing Christian majority. There's another, loosely related subject, which is that of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the EEOC. This is not either a judicial or a legislative authority, but a commission that brings discrimination cases to court. But this targets the employers and other institutional authorities, not the employees, clients, students, or customers. A private employer must not discriminate in hiring and labor practices, for example, but the employee is the protected one. That means that if you are a Christian employee, for example, you are free to proclaim the gospel and behave according to your faith. Obviously, you must pay attention to doing the job for which you are paid, and the employer has a business concern that what you do is not detrimental to his business. But the point is that the employee is the protected one. It is good to keep this in mind, in the case of bullying in the form of, say, an employer telling you that you can't speak in the name of Jesus or pray on company premises because of [quote]"EEOC regulations"[unquote]. The EEOC can't prevent you from doing that. So, I hope this video helps to set the matter straight on the constitution, so that people know their civil rights in the face of unconstitutional bullying in the U.S.