Congressman Jody Hice railed against the separation of church and state in a video statement screened at a San Diego Christian conference, Right Wing Watch reported.

“Somehow we have bought into that false belief that our Constitution forbids us from being involved because of the so-called separation of church and state,” the Georgia Republican said in a video prepared for the Future Conference in San Diego. “I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that that’s not in our constitution. But it’s been said so many times that many Christians believe that we ought not be involved.”

While the exact phrase “separation of church and state” is not used in the Constitution, Hice did not mention that Thomas Jefferson used it to explain the First Amendment’s stance guaranteeing freedom of religion.

“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 and State,” Jefferson wrote in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists in Connecticut. “Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf […]