Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) pushed back Tuesday on the belief that there should be separation between church and state on the U.S., arguing that the founding fathers wanted faith to be a “big part…
Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the ‘wall of separation between church and state,’
therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
—Thomas Jefferson
When a religion is good, conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, apprehend, of its being a bad one.
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.
—Thomas Jefferson
—Benjamin Franklin
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/thomas-jefferson-religious-institutions/
I agree with your sentiment, but please don’t spread misinformation regardless of intent.
Proper quote:
(From your snopes link)