The statement that Thomas Jefferson meant his "wall of separation" to be "one-directional," only to protect the church from incursions by the state "is an example of one of the Religious Right's more blatant lies. It is impossible to determine where this myth originated, but we do know that it began appearing with increasing frequency in the early 1990s. The phrase 'one-directional' often appears in quotation marks to make it appear as if it were lifted from a letter or personal writing of Jefferson's. "Of course, Jefferson said no such thing about his 'wall,' as any of his biographers or church-state historians will readily testify. Jefferson's writings indicate beyond a doubt that he believed separation would protect both church and state." Robert Boston, Why The Religious Right is Wrong About Separation of Church & State (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1993), p. 222.