O'Donnell, Urquhart and the Separation of Church and State

Glen Urquhart might prefer it if Christine O'Donnell simply avoided the subject of the separation of church and state. As I write in the Huffington Post today, O'Donnell's discussion of the First Amendment didn't help the man just below her on the GOP ticket:

Pressed by her Democratic opponent, Chris Coons, Christine O'Donnell yesterday questioned whether the First Amendment to the Constitution established the separation of church and state. The law school audience gasped.

Radio station WDEL, which sponsored the debate, has the entire event on video.

Her gaffe immediately brought to mind Urquhart's similar assertion linking the separation of church and state to Adolf Hitler. Last April, Urquhart claimed that Thomas Jefferson never used the phrase, but Hitler had, adding, "The next time your liberal friends talk about separation of church and state, ask them why they're Nazis."

Tea party candidates sometimes refer to themselves as "constitutional conservatives," but they seem to trip over themselves when laying out their views on some of the document's most basic provisions.