Why do liberals think the "separation of church and state" is part of the Constitution?

Liberals do not think that. We have had good educations and realize that phrase came from a letter that Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Church. The constitution states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Both the free exercise clause and the establishment clause place restrictions on the government concerning laws they pass or interfering with religion. No restrictions are placed on religions except perhaps that a religious denomination cannot become the state religion.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

if you can have no law respecting the establishment or religion or prohibiting the free exercise of the freedom of religion, Speech and what no... you in turn have a separation of Church and state.

Because the moment you insert a particular faith into any law....you limit the faith and actions of those who my worship differently. So no the word are not there the but concept is absolutely there.

The right seems to only want separations of church and state when it is convenient. Such as the sink about Churches and birth control last week. Everyone on the right suddenly were demanding that separation then. Keep government out of faith issue. And then by the end of the week they were saying Obama was bad because his agenda was not based on the bible.

You don't get it both ways.

Also if you based your agenda on the bible you would be making laws based on an establishment of religion-- therfor prohibiting the free exercise any faith that chooses NOT to follow the bible.

I always thought that it was intended to keep the state out of religious issues and the church out of the political circle. It doesnt say anywhere that religious principals or motifs are strictly banned on state funded architecture or currently existing structures. I do not think that athiests have a case when they want the sculptures of items like the 10 commandments or adam and eve sandblasted off of very old state buildings. That does not imply that the state is taking on religious matters, and wants to govern a new state church. People cannot help it if 100% of the founding fathers and immigrants that started this country had a christian background. You cannot demolish history, and I hate athiests for this position. I have yet to see in my lifetime any attempt by the state to take on religious matters and everything athiests present is an over exaggeration.

"The phrase didn't even come about until 1802, when Jefferson was explaining the "Establishment Clause" to the Dansbury Baptists."

The Establishment Clause is in the Constitution! So, if the Establishment Clause's purpose is to create a separation between church and state... put two and two together.

Because I trust Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Constitution, to know what he meant.

It was not part of the original Constitution, and when questioned by the Danbury Baptists, Jefferson elaborated on EXACTLY what he meant:

"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."

Did you see what he did there? He said, "A WALL OF SEPARATION BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE." That's his clarification, not ours. Do you believe Thomas Jefferson?

[N.B. - I'm a lifelong Reagan Republican.] A separation of church and state is ingrained in the entire fabric of the Founding era of America. It's not the kind of anti-religiosity that today's Leftists espouse, but rather an element the Founders were careful to include after the bitter memory of the Medieval period, in which governments imposed state religions and persecuted anyone who refused to join up.

The reason the Founders based the American system on natural rights - rights that inhere in each individual by virtue of his nature as a rational being, regardless of creed - is because they knew that for a nation to be free and to remain free, its core ethical system would have to be rooted not in a particular religion, but in a universal attribute of man, something that applies to every living human, regardless of background or creed: His need to remain alive by the freedom to think and to produce.

George Washington correctly observed that "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

If church becomes a function of the state, what that means, inescapably, is that people are forced to believe something that someone else decides they must believe. If the government becomes dominated by Baptists, the people must become Baptists, by force of law. If it's Baha'i, the people must become Baha'i. If it's Islam, the people must become Muslim. If it's Environmentalism, the people must become "Green." (D'OH!)

Another relevant statement is something Thomas Paine said in "The Age of Reason":

"Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe. It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief, if I may so express it, that mental lying has produced in society. When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime."

I agree, fully.

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We don't.

We do, however, note that it has been interpreted as a Constitutional issue and applied by the United States Supreme Court in many cases beginning in 1878.

They have twisted the meaning of what is written in the Constitution. They want a world without morality. A world where government can do whatever it wants to people and there is no moral standard to follow.

It is already like this in some countries. There are places in this world where the police rape women, and molest children. Don't think that it can't happen here.

The exact wording is not in the Constitution, but the concept of the US government not advocating one religion over the other is there.

That is the best phrase we have found to explain it.

We could do away with it then. You would know you place and stop expressing your opinion to men, cover your head and your church could pay taxes. Or we could pick something besides Christianity.