UP the thread I posted Jefferson's letter that contains "wall of separation" (which is where "separation of church and state" comes from).
The letter was to the Danbury Baptist association. It was regarding their row with the... atheists? Agnostics? Nope, the Congregationalists. The baptists saw their religious freedom as granted by the state due to the way they were treated (government controlled by Congregationalists), and wanted clarification.
Separation is shown even in its very beginning as protecting religious freedom, not endangering it.
So it is today.
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"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." — Thomas Paine
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