Republican candidate Christine O’Donnell has put her foot in it again, with a question over the separation of church and state.
In a debate in front of an audience of law students and attorneys at Widener University Law School, O’Donnell challenged her rival, Democrat Chris Coons, himself an attorney, over the separation of church and state in the constitution.
"Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?" O’Donnell asked Coons, amid audible gasps and laughter from the crowd.
Coons replied that O’Donnell had just revealed her fundamental misunderstanding of what our Constitution is. “... The First Amendment establishes a separation." At which O’Donnell interrupted him to again ask "The First Amendment does? ... So you're telling me that the separation of church and state, the phrase 'separation of church and state,' is in the First Amendment?"
O’Donnell’s campaign were quick to issue a statement clarifying that she was only questioning whether the exact phrase was in the Constitution, not whether the concept was implied in the First Amendment or not.
Both candidates used the debate to try and imply that the other was not in proper understanding of the Constitution. The portion of the Constitution in question states:
"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."
The phrase “separation of Church and State” is traced back to Thomas Jefferson.
