Separation of church and state facts for kids

Motto of the French state, on a church door. "[The] French Republic" "Freedom, Equality, Friendship"

Separation of church and state is a phrase that was used by Thomas Jefferson in a letter in 1802 to the Baptist Association in Danbury, Connecticut. The Supreme Court of the United States, in 1962, took the phrase in their decisions to make school prayers unconstitutional. This idea has been put into effect in a number of countries.

Other page

• Secular state
• Secularism
• Freedom of religion

Images for kids

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  St. Augustine by Carlo Crivelli

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  John Locke, English political philosopher argued for individual conscience, free from state control

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  Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, whose letter to the Danbury Baptists Association is often quoted in debates regarding the separation of church and state.

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  H. B. Higgins, proponent of Section 116 in the Australian pre-Federation constitutional conventions

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  Azerbaijan and its main cities

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  Rui Barbosa had a large influence upon the text adopted as the 1891 Constitution of Brazil.

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  "Constitution no. 1", which is kept in the great hall of the Palace of the Constitutional Court and is used on the occasion of the presidential inauguration

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  Courtroom with Crucifix in Nuremberg, Germany, June 2016

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  James Madison, drafter of the Bill of Rights

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  Thomas Jefferson's tombstone. The inscription, as he stipulated, reads, "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of ... the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom ...."

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  Antichristus, a woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Elder of the pope using the temporal power to grant authority to a generously contributing ruler