Indeed, although many Americans view the separation of church and state as one of the keys to the nation’s success as a multicultural society, Angle believes that religion has an expansive role to play in government. And, she has repeatedly said anyone who opposes that based on the claim of separation of church and state misunderstands the Constitution’s ban on “establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

In this regard, Angle’s view of religion’s role in government parallels that of a religious political movement — Christian Reconstructionism — seeking to return American civil society to biblical law…

“Thomas Jefferson was addressing a church and telling them a wall of separation had been put up precisely to protect the church from being taken over by a state religion,” Angle said last month in an interview on “Face to Face With Jon Ralston.” “That’s what they meant. They didn’t mean we couldn’t bring our values to the political forum.”

In legislative testimony on a school-choice bill in 1995, she said it was “un-American” to exclude private religious schools from government funding and that the separation of church and state is an “unconstitutional doctrine.”