McCain on Separation of Church and State

There is a lot of misinformation surrounding the separation of church and state in this country. Some will claim that it was the Founders who introduced "In God We Trust" as the national motto, and "under, God" in the pledge, but that is not the case. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were staunch separationists who advocated for a secular Constitution and Bill of Rights.

• IN GOD WE TRUST
  
  The nation’s motto was originally “E Pluribus Unum” (or, “From Many, One”), a phrase selected by a committee of Founding Fathers that included James Madison. "In God We Trust" made its first appearance on United States currency in 1864, during the Civil War. Done without public debate, it was placed on the 2 cent piece as a statement that God was on the side of the Union Army during the Civil War. The motto “In God We Trust” dates from the Civil War not the founding of the nation, and was not formally adopted as the national motto until 1956.
  
  
• THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
  
  The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, a Baptist minister. Bellamy crafted the Pledge for a magazine called The Youth's Companion as part of a patriotic exercise to mark the 400th anniversary of Columbus' voyage to the New World. Bellamy, who was an advocate of church-state separation, did not include religious references in his Pledge. He also didn't include any reference to a specific nation because he had hoped the pledge might someday become a "world" pledge, and be used to bring people together. In 1954, Congress inserted the phrase "under God" into the Pledge after a lobbying campaign led by the Knights of Columbus. Until that time the Pledge had been a purely patriotic exercise. As is often the case, religion was injected into the public sphere during a time of crisis. In this case it was during the McCarthy era, and the change was seen as a blow against "godless communism" in the Soviet Union.

We are in a time of crisis, and we must choose as our next president a candidate who will stand up for separation of church and state. Religious liberty is one of our most precious freedoms, and we must do all that we can to protect it.