Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.

The quotation argues that when religion is backed by state power, both civic liberty and religion itself are harmed. Coercive establishment threatens equal rights by allowing one creed to dominate others (or the nonreligious), while government patronage dulls clergy accountability to congregants and invites institutional corruption. The “wall of separation” metaphor frames religious freedom as a structural safeguard: the state must not enforce doctrine, and religious bodies should not wield civil authority. The passage thus treats disestablishment not as hostility to religion, but as a condition for pluralism, conscience, and the integrity of religious life.