Delaware candidates debate church-state separation

In their most recent debate on Tuesday, Delaware senatorial candidates Chris Coons and Christine O’Donnell appeared to have differing views about the contents and meaning of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Republican candidate and Tea Party-endorsed Christine O’Donnell seemed unsure about the amendment’s reference to separation of church and state, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Before an audience at Widener University Law School in Wilmington, Del., O’Donnell asked Democratic opponent Coons, “Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?”

She asked her question after Coons explained that because of this separation, the Constitution does not allow religion to be taught in public schools, according to the New York Times.

“Religious doctrine doesn’t belong in our public schools,” Coons said.

In response to O’Donnell’s question, Coons then pointedly recited the language of the First Amendment that proclaims, “Government shall make no establishment of religion.”

O’Donnell continued to question Coons about his assertion, which elicited laughs from the audience.

Matt Moran, O’Donnell’s campaign manager, defended her behavior in the debate, saying she only meant to clarify.

“[She] was not questioning the concept of separation of church and state as subsequently established by the courts. She simply made the point that the phrase appears nowhere in the Constitution,” Moran wrote in a statement.

While the exact phrase “separation of church and state” is in fact not in the Constitution, decisional law by the U.S. Supreme Court over many decades has clarified and enshrined the separation, Coons said.

Regardless of O’Donnell’s true intent, the audience’s reaction suggested that they believed she did not recognize that the principle so fundamental to U.S. constitutional law had derived from the First Amendment, according to the New York Times.