{"id":43,"date":"2011-03-24T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-03-24T14:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/understandingsecularism.wp.trincoll.edu\/2011\/02\/23\/public-opinion-and-support-for-the-separation-of-church-and-state-in-the-u-s-and-europe\/"},"modified":"2011-10-12T11:07:49","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T15:07:49","slug":"public-opinion-and-support-for-the-separation-of-church-and-state-in-the-u-s-and-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/2011\/03\/24\/public-opinion-and-support-for-the-separation-of-church-and-state-in-the-u-s-and-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Opinion and Support for the Separation of Church and State in the U.S. and Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by <strong>Barry A. Kosmin<\/strong>, <em>Research Professor in the Public Policy &amp; Law Program at Trinity College and Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The idea of separating the institutions of the state, government and public life from the direct involvement and influence of organized religion arose during the Enlightenment. It became a feasible proposition as a result of the two great revolutions of the 18th century. In fact the American and French revolutions produced two intellectual and constitutional traditions of secularism and the secular state &#8211; a \u201csoft secularism\u201d and a \u201chard\u00a0secularism\u201d. Canadians, of course, rejected both these revolutions and so historically they are heirs to the Lockean tradition of religious toleration rather than of secularism per se.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"View Public Opinion and Support for the Separation of Church and State in the U.S. and Europe  on Scribd\" href=\"http:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/49407231\/Public-Opinion-and-Support-for-the-Separation-of-Church-and-State-in-the-U-S-and-Europe\">Public Opinion and Support for the Separation of Church and State in the U.S. and Europe <\/a> <object height=\"600\" width=\"100%\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/d1.scribdassets.com\/ScribdViewer.swf\"><param name=\"wmode\" value=\"opaque\"><param name=\"bgcolor\" value=\"#ffffff\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"><param name=\"FlashVars\" value=\"document_id=49407231&amp;access_key=key-7ym7ovczycqa5wjsy7n&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list\"><embed name=\"doc_62253\" src=\"http:\/\/d1.scribdassets.com\/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=49407231&amp;access_key=key-7ym7ovczycqa5wjsy7n&amp;page=1&amp;viewMode=list\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" height=\"600\" width=\"100%\" wmode=\"opaque\" bgcolor=\"#ffffff\"><\/embed><\/object> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Barry A. Kosmin, Research Professor in the Public Policy &amp; Law Program at Trinity College and Founding Director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture The idea of separating the institutions of the state, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/2011\/03\/24\/public-opinion-and-support-for-the-separation-of-church-and-state-in-the-u-s-and-europe\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,15,19,28,33,37],"tags":[53,63,45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1143,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions\/1143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/understandingsecularism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}