That low moaning sound in the background just might be the Founding Fathers protesting from beyond the grave. They have been doing it when George Bush, at a breakfast of religious leaders, scorched the Democrats for failing to mention God in their platform and declaimed that a President needs to believe in the Almighty. What about the constitutional ban on "religious test(s)" for public office the Founding Fathers would want to know. What about Tom Jefferson’s conviction that it is possible for a nonbeliever to be a moral person, "find (ing) incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise" Even George Washington must shudder in his sleep to hear the constant emphasis on "Judeo- Christian values." It was he who wrote, "We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land ... every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart."
George Bush should know better than to encourage the theocratic ambitions of the Christian right. The "wall of separation" the Founding Fathers built between church and state is one of the best defenses freedom has ever had. Or have we already forgotten why the Founding Fathers put it up They had seen enough religious intolerance in the colonies: Quaker women were burned at the stake in Puritan Massachusetts; Virginians could be jailed for denying the Bible’s authority. No wonder John Adams once described the Judeo-Christian tradition as "the most bloody religion that ever existed," and that the Founding Fathers took such pains to keep the hand that holds the musket separate from the one that carries the cross.
There was another reason for the separation of church and state, which no amount of pious ranting can expunge: not all the Founding Fathers believed in the same God, or in any God at all. Jefferson was a renowned doubter, urging his nephew to "question with boldness even the existence of a God." John Adams was at least a skeptic, as were of course the revolutionary firebrands Tom Paine and Ethan Allen. Naturally, they designed a republic in which they themselves would have a place.
Yet another reason argues for the separation of church and state. If the Founding Fathers had one overarching aim, it was to limit the power not of the churches but of the state. They were deeply concerned, as Adams wrote, that "government shall be considered as having in it nothing more mysterious or divine than other arts or sciences.’ Surely the Republicans, committed as they are to "limited government," ought to honor the secular spirit that has limited our government from the moment of its birth.
The separation of religion and state was designed mainly to（）
A. highlight the role of the government
B. pay tribute to religious leaders
C. limit the command of the government
D. encourage the believers’ ambitions
