Church and State

Church and State may refer to:

Ted Cruz

Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (born December 22, 1970) is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from Texas. He is a candidate for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, in the 2016 presidential election.

Cruz graduated from Princeton University in 1992, and from Harvard Law School in 1995. Between 1999 and 2003, Cruz was the director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, an associate deputy attorney general at the United States Department of Justice, and domestic policy advisor to President George W. Bush on the 2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign. He served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to 2008, appointed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. He was the first Hispanic, and the longest-serving solicitor general, in Texas history. From 2004 to 2009, Cruz was also an adjunct professor of law at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, where he taught U.S. Supreme Court litigation.

Cruz ran for the Senate seat vacated by fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison, and in July 2012 defeated Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst during the Republican primary runoff, 57%–43%. Cruz then defeated former state Representative Paul Sadler in the November 2012 general election, winning 56%–41%. He is the first Hispanic American to serve as a U.S. senator representing Texas, and is one of three Senators of Cuban descent. Cruz chairs the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Federal Rights and Agency Activities, and is also the chairman of the United States Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. In November 2012, he was appointed vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Separation of church and state

The separation of church and state is a concept defining the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state. It may refer to creating a secular state, with or without explicit reference to such separation, or to changing an existing relationship of church involvement in a state (disestablishment).

Although the concept of separation has been adopted in a number of countries, there are varying degrees of separation depending on the applicable legal structures and prevalent views toward the proper relationship between religion and politics. While a country's policy may be to have a definite distinction between church and state bodies, there may be an "arm's length distance" relationship in which the two entities interact as independent organizations. A similar but typically stricter principle of laïcité has been applied in France and Turkey, while some socially secularized countries such as Denmark and the United Kingdom have maintained constitutional recognition of an official state religion. The concept parallels various other international social and political ideas, including secularism, disestablishmentarianism, religious liberty, and religious pluralism. Whitman (2009) observes that in many European countries, the state has, over the centuries, taken over the social roles of the church, leading to a generally secularized public sphere.

State

State may refer to:

Law and politics

Science and technology

Church

Church may refer to:

Religion