:|Basic reading skills applied to the 1st Amendment tell us that the scope
:|of the amendment's restrictions on speech and religion apply only to
:|Congress. Congress, and only Congress, is restricted from making laws
:|pertaining to speech and religion. However, somewhere along the line
:|the Supreme Court wrongly read Thomas Jefferson's famous church/state
:|separation writing into the 1st Amendment, wrongly inferring that the
:|Founding Fathers had meant for the scope of the 1st Amendment's
:|restrictions on government to also apply to the state governments.
:|
:|THE BIG PROBLEM with the SC's "wisdom," or lack thereof, in deciding
:|what the Founding Fathers "had really meant" concerning the scope of the
:|1st Amendment is that Thomas Jefferson himself had noted that the
:|Constitution gives the States the power to address and cultivate
:|religion. Indeed, Jefferson reflected that the 1st and 10th Amendments
:|are supposed to work together to give the States the power to address
:|religion. But don't believe me; see for yourself:
:|
:|-----
:|"In matters of religion, I have considered that its free exercise is
:|placed by the Constitution independent of the powers of the general
:|government. I have therefore undertaken on no occasion to prescribe the
:|religious exercises suited to it; but have left them as the Constitution
:|found them, under the direction and discipline of State or Church
:|authorities acknowledged by the several religious societies." --Thomas
:|Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:378
:|
:|"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the
:|Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their
:|doctrines, discipline, or exercises. This results not only from the
:|provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment or free
:|exercise of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states
:|the powers not delegated to the United States. Certainly, no power to
:|prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious
:|discipline has been delegated to the General Government. It must then
:|rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority."
:|--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Miller, 1808. ME 11:428
:|
:|Also applicable:
:|
:|"Our citizens have wisely formed themselves into one nation as to others
:|and several States as among themselves. To the united nation belong our
:|external and mutual relations; to each State, severally, the care of our
:|persons, our property, our reputation and religious freedom." --Thomas
:|Jefferson: To Rhode Island Assembly, 1801. ME 10:262
:|-----
:|
:|Note that the Inagural Address and Samuel Miller letters above were
:|written AFTER Jefferson wrote his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist
:|Church member.
:|
:|The only reason the country addresses religion the way it does today is
:|because the idea of absolute church/state separation is a "tradition of
:|men" (Mark 7:7) - a wive's tale - that has wrongly been allowed to
:|supersede the written law of the land.
:|
:|M. Clark
:|
:|>
:|>
:|> >
:|> > John
:|> >
:|> >
:|> > "Josh Rosenbluth" <jrosenbluth@gotcha.comcast.net> wrote in message
:|> > news:41A10204.7080609@gotcha.comcast.net...
:|> >> John wrote:
:|> >> > Dave, thanks for your views.
:|> >> >
:|> >> > How do you conclude: "The first amendment was written to be interpreted
:|> >> > broadly."
:|> >> >
:|> >> > ...and who decides how broad is broad? The Supreme Court?
:|> >> >
:|> >> > When will we get to the point where miscellaneous County Commissioners
:|> > are
:|> >> > chastised ( in the name of the First Amendment) for going to church,
:|> >>
:|> >> When The Justices lose their minds. Such as chastising would trivially
:|> >> violate the Free Exercise clause.
:|> >>
:|> >> > I prefer a more literal reading, myself.
:|> >>
:|> >> Wouldn't a literal meaning allow Alabama to criminalize Judaism?
:|> >>
:|> >> Josh Rosenbluth
:|> >>
:|> >
:|> >