The principal framers of the American political system wanted no religious parties in national politics. They crafted a constitutional order that intended to make a person's religious convictions, or his lack of religious convictions, irrelevant in judging the value of his political opinion or in assessing his qualifications to hold political office. — Isaac Kramnick and R. Laurence Moore [The Godless Constitution: The Case Against Religious Correctness (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996), p. 23.]