In the world of church-state blogging, Thomas Jefferson is always topical. The third president and Founding Father has seemed to be especially in the news lately though, thanks to controversial decisions by the Texas Education Board that would revamp the Social Studies curriculum. A new LATimes editorial remarks that the proposed changes "downplay the role of Thomas Jefferson, in part because he coined the phrase 'separation of church and state.'"
Adding that troubling story to the fact that this week marks the start of the National Cherry Blossom Festival, celebrating the bloom of the beautiful trees that line the Tidal Basin, and I figure there could be no better time to revisit another national treasure that sits there: the Jefferson Memorial.
His powerful words line the inside of the structure, most famously of course those from the Declaration of Independence ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…"). On the northwest wall, though, is an inscription less well-known but no less powerful, from his "Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom":
No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.
Hopefully, this sentiment will remain not just etched in stone in our nation's capital, but supported in our laws, honored in our institutions of government, and yes, taught – not downplayed – in our classrooms.
