On Feb 22, 2007, at 9:45 AM, Sam Treynor wrote: > "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" > appears > to prohibit Congress from interfering with the establishment of > religion by > a State, most of which had established religions at the time the > Constitution was adopted. > A number did, but Virginia very notably did not: the Statute for Religious Freedom (http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwedo/k12/bor/vsrftext.htm#trans), prohibiting any state establishment of religion, was passed more than a year before the U.S. Constitution was created and several years before the Bill of Rights. Is this most historic of Virginia's laws no longer in effect? And if it is in effect, shouldn't it be the reference point for this discussion, at least as much as is the First Amendment? It should also perhaps be noted that the governing body of the University of Virginia was from the beginning (when it included both Jefferson and Madison) at great pains to avoid any hint of religious partiality at the University, as evinced by the following passage in one of Jefferson's letters: "In the Rockfish report [which led to the founding of the University] it was stated as probable that a building larger than the Pavilions might be called for in time, in which might be rooms for a library, for public examinations, and for religious worship <ital>under such impartial regulations as the Visitors should prescribe</ital>, the legislature neither sanctioned nor rejected this proposition; and afterwards, in the Report of Oct 1822. the board suggested, as a substitute, that the different religious sects should be invited to establish their separate theological schools in the vicinity of the University, in which the Students might attend religious worship, each in the form of his respective sect, and thus avoid all jealousy of attempts on his religious tenets. among the enactments of the board is one looking to this object, and superseding the first idea of permitting a room in the Rotunda to be used for religious worship, and of undertaking to frame a set of regulations of equality and impartiality among the multiplied sects. I state these things as manifesting the caution which the board of Visitors thinks it a duty to observe on this delicate and jealous subject." (Jefferson to Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough, April 21, 1825, http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/ot2www-singleauthor?specfile=/web/ data/jefferson/tex [italics in original].) It is really quite remarkable that--as some of the comments on this thread make clear--this approach to religion at a public university remains controversial in Virginia 182 years later. --Jurretta J. Heckscher To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html