Phrase ‘Separation of Church and State’ Is Misused to Exclude Religion from the Public Square, AG Barr Says

On Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr delivered a speech addressing the common misrepresentation of the phrase “separation of church and state” at the 16th Annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast. The event was held virtually due to the pandemic.

“Militant secularists have long seized on [the “separation of church and state”] slogan as a facile justification for attempting to drive religion from the public square and to exclude religious people from bringing a religious perspective to bear on conversations about the common good,” Barr said.

According to Fox News, Barr also noted a decline of “traditional morality” as “actively hostile” people call for the support of removing religion from state entities.

The attorney general argued that the removal of religion and “striking increases in urban violence, drug abuse and broken families” are directly correlated.

“Problems like these have fed the rise of an ever more powerful central government, one that increasingly saps individual initiative, coopts civil society, crowds out religious institutions and ultimately reduces citizens to wards of the state,” Barr said.

Barr also addressed “three important victories for religious freedom” concerning recent Supreme Court cases, including a July decision that allows employers to opt-out of the Affordable Care Act’s birth…