> Yes, people have to be careful, how dare we speak against a goverment running for free speach... ^_^ Oh, but I thought the entire reason why the pilgrims came over was because they didn't like the way the church ruled over the king. Or something...

Or something. The problem was that they didn't like the king ruling over the church, which left them with the inability to worship as they chose.

The motivation behind "separation of church and state" was not to keep the church out of the government, but to keep the government out of the church.

This is not to say that the former is not necessarily also a good idea, but it seems the most avid proponents of keeping church and state separate are actually seeking freedom *from* religion, rather than freedom *of* religion.