State/Church Separation issues

I've found this verse in the bible which supports keeping prayer out of the public arena. This means public schools, public courthouses, federal, state, and local governments, and many, many other places except your own room. It even says not to do it in synagogue, or church as the modern Christians call it.

Matthew 6 (New International Version)

5 And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

I would even argue that if "your Father knows what you need before you ask him" why pray to begin with. Seems praying doesn't change anything.

But I digress.

Secularists, such as myself, do not want to take prayer or worship away from people. This is a myth perpetrated by the Religious Right for some unknown reason. The freedom of religion is clearly stated in the First Amendment of the Constitution. You are free to pray at home, in church, in your car, etc. The only places where this is in violation of the same First Amendment is public, government, and places that are maintained with tax payer money. The reason is because the federal, state, and local government cannot show preference to any one religion. It is also a safeguard to keep the government out of church related activities and to prevent the church from influencing the government.

Are any of you familiar with Thomas Jefferson? He was a great visionary and one of the founding fathers of the United States. In 1802 he sent a letter to the Danbury Baptists, who were being persecuted because they did not belong to the Congregationalist establishment in Connecticut. Imagine, another Christian sect infringing on the rights of another Christian sect. In this letter Jefferson says:

"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."

Pretty clear. Jefferson wasn't the only one who wrote about this. Madison himself also referred to the concept of a wall of separation. In a letter from 1819, he wrote that "the number, the industry and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church and state." Madison wrote (probably early 1800s), "Strongly guarded...is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States.

I hope this helps to clear up any misconception about the reason secularists feel strongly about this issue.