Brent,

    You got it just about right but the issue is even more complicated.  I
lived in Claremont and worked sometimes at the Claremont Colleges when
Professor Leonard Levy was working on both his book on the free exercise
clause and what became his massive study Blasphemy.  The place then was
alive with discussions of constitutional history and I have even taught
Blasphemy in a seminar on the First Amendment as history and law.
    Levy was of the opinion, for instance, that the Supreme Court had never
ruled out prosecution for blasphemy as being in violation of the 1st
Amendment.
    He notes that many of the older states kept and established church under
state constitutions even though the First Amendment forbids CONGRESS from
establishing one.
    Bill of Rights scholarship is both remarkably interesting and terribly
contentious.  Slowly but surely the high court imposes definitions on the
words in the BoR;  which seems undemocratic but how else are we to reach
closure on what those rights actually constitute?

Harold S. Forsythe
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brent Tarter" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 10:05 AM
Subject: Re: Religious freedom?


The First Amendment (not the original Constitution) actually states:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The words "freedom of religion"
are not in the Constitution or the First Amendment.

Which raises an interesting question: What did the members of Congress
intend when they wrote that "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion"? We assume the words means that Congress may
not establish one. But it is also logical and grammatical to assume that
Congress could not disestablish one or make any law that countenanced or
discountenanced or altered any state's laws "respecting" church and
state.

Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
[log in to unmask]

Visit the Library of Virginia's web site at http://www.lva.lib.va.us

-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of jadams957
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2005 9:36 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Religious freedom?

Here we go again.
The Constitution says FREEDOM "OF" RELIGION, not freedom from religion.
Learn what the prepositions mean. If everyone will remember that our
President tried to explain the meaning of IS. Law has gotten to the
point of being an English lesson. Our forefathers designed our statutes
to codify the separation of religion and to not have a State religion,
but allow the worship of the Christian doctrine, as represented, in the
1700's as the concept worth fighting our cousins the English. Maybe if
we pay attention to the teaching of the values and the beliefs our
country was built upon the NEED for private schooling would not need to
be in such great demand.
This also goes for West Virginia not being in existence before 1863.
Thanks
John Philip Adams

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