LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY charlayne)

There are times my education comes in handy. This last couple of weeks my English history professor has had us reading John Locke's "A Letter Concerning Toleration, 1689". I've been going over it and it has some very valuable things to say about the separation of church and state (though not in those words, he's talking about government, princes, magistrates, and church; same diff in my opinion...)

If you want to read up, here's the link to it: http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1651-1700/locke/ECT/toleraxx.htm)

Locke is prized by many of those who love the "philosophy of American Founders" thing and the quotes you can pull out of this document to use on people who want to say that the Church should run the state (or vice versa) may make their little heads just explode. I recommend letting them read this with a warning to keep duct tape on hand to fix the cranial cavity.