Do you, as a U.S. citizen, support the general policy of "separation of church and state" in the United States?

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This is for a speech I must give in class on church-state separation. I need to know how many U.S. citizens, whether part of a religious majority (Protestant or Catholic Christians, in the U.S) or minority (not Christian, in the U.S.), support the general principle of church-state separation, for any reason.
The first amendment explicitly states that our government shall not be able to designate a national religion, or prevent the free exercise of any religion. It has been decided that this should be interpreted as establishing a separation between church and state. The question is whether or not you agree, in general terms, with this interpretation.

The multiple Yes/No answers are necessary to determine whether groups in the religious majority or minority in the U.S. support church-state separation differently.

Rating	Total	Female	Male	Unspecified	Average Age
Good	12	4	8	0	37.9
Bad	5	2	3	0	37.2
No Opinion	51	24	27	0	39.9

Type	Number
Abstainers	6
Male	36
Female	30
Unspecified	0

Qualifiers:

User	Vote	Comment
msgman	reasonable	posted 18-Oct-2000 4:51pm
nihon	reasonable	posted 18-Oct-2000 3:10pm
Guthrie	reasonable	posted 18-Oct-2000 11:15am
Strider	reasonable	posted 17-Oct-2000 11:32pm
Richard	reasonable	posted 17-Oct-2000 11:20pm
Zang	N/A	posted 17-Oct-2000 9:43pm Analog: I was going to say that.
Analog	override	posted 17-Oct-2000 9:18pm Cody, failing to go to church does not make one a ``practicing atheist.'' That's just silly. It is well established that Christianity is the majority religion in the U.S.A. Acknowledging this does not constitute bias.
cody	needs work	posted 17-Oct-2000 7:23pm Your statements about religious majority and minority are biased, and It is my personal opinion that when we look at PRACTICING (as in at least 4 hours a month) religious groups in this country, the breakdown looks something like this. Christian-25% Pagan-5% Jewish-2.5% Other-2.5% Non-practicing-65% Making, in terms of PRACTICED religion, 65% of the country atheist.
daver	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 4:19pm Not everyone is a US citizen.
North79	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 4:06pm J'suis pas américain, merci mille fois!
nihon	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 3:24pm I agree with Analog and natsim.
natsim	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 3:10pm That helps a lot. The definition you've put in works for me. You need to put in an "I am not a US citizen" option (but it would be better if you allowed non US citizens to answer).
Analog	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 2:31pm A lot of the users here aren't from the U.S.A. What about them?
mbowes	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 1:41pm
Analog	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 1:16pm I'm not sure it's all that easy to define ``separation of church and state,'' as natsim has suggested. If you define it too rigidly, you will bias the answers you get, because even in the U.S.A. different people have different ideas of what it means. I for one support ``separation of church and state'' in the sense in which it is defined in the 1st amendment to the U.S. Constitution (basically that the U.S. government isn't allowed to tell churches how they should operate), but I do not support some of the things that are done in the name of ``separation of church and state,'' such as forbidding students to pray in public schools. On the other hand, I don't know what (if anything) the phrase ``separation of church and state'' might denote outside the U.S.A., so it should at least be mentioned that it's a term used to describe the principle in U.S. law that the government isn't allowed to meddle in the affairs of religious establishments.
phi	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 11:51am I like the idea of having multiple yes and no options like you have here. But I think you are confusing Christianity with membership in a religious majority (and probably also with Protestantism). Remember, there are people here from places where Islam or Shintoism (or Catholicism, which some people seem inexplicably to call 'not Christian') is the majority religion.
ASB	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 10:39am Why does it matter if we are or arent christian?
natsim	old	posted 17-Oct-2000 8:56am I think you need to define the separation of church and state. I know that sounds bizarre, but in other countries, this concept is not talked about in the same terms as it is in the USA.
nihon	old	posted 16-Oct-2000 11:39pm How about just "Do you support the separation of church and state?". The rest of the words are very unnecessary.
Richard	old	posted 16-Oct-2000 11:37pm This needs "I don't know" as a option
daver	old	posted 16-Oct-2000 9:51pm As a general principle or as an opinion on the proper role of the US federal government?
Maarten	old	posted 16-Oct-2000 9:45pm You need 'I don't know', 'Haven't given it a thought' and 'Other' options.