120px|A service at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney Section 116 of the Constitution of Australia precludes the Commonwealth of Australia (i.e., the federal parliament) from making laws for establishing any religion, imposing any religious observance, or prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. Section 116 also provides that no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. The product of a compromise in the pre-Federation constitutional conventions, Section 116 is based on similar provisions in the United States Constitution. The provision has been interpreted narrowly by the High Court of Australia: while the definition of "religion" adopted by the court is broad and flexible, the scope of the protection of religions is circumscribed. No court has ever ruled a law to be in contravention of Section 116. Federal Governments have twice proposed amendments to the provision, principally to apply it to laws made by the states of Australia. On each occasion—in 1944 and 1988—the proposal failed in a referendum. (more...) Recently featured: Oort cloud – Kylfings – HMS Lion Archive – By email – More featured articles... Read the rest of this article: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_116_of_the_Constitution_of_Australia> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1483: The first mass in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican City was celebrated. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistine_Chapel> 1854: Henry David Thoreau published Walden, his account of having spent two years living mostly in isolation on Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden> 1942: World War II: In the first major naval engagement of the Guadalcanal campaign, Japan forced the United States to withdraw from the Solomon Islands. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Savo_Island> 1965: Malaysia expelled the state of Singapore from its federation due to heated ideological conflict between their respective ruling parties. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore> 1974: Watergate scandal: Richard Nixon became the only President of the United States to resign from office. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: orthodoxly (adv): 1. In the correct or accepted manner; conventionally. 2. In accordance with accepted religious doctrine <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/orthodoxly> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: If you are not ready, and did not know what to do, it could hurt you in different ways. It could knock you down, hard, or throw you against a tree or a wall. It is such a big explosion, it can smash in buildings and knock signboards over, and break windows all over town, but if you duck and cover, like Bert, you will be much safer. --w:Duck and Cover (film) <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/w%3ADuck_and_Cover_%28film%29>