Originally Posted by NW Ponderer
Taking your statements slightly out of order, you say, "The phrasing of the First Amendment was to prevent Congress from choosing any religion." I completely agree. It does not require it to decide to support any particular religion, but religion in general (otherwise they would have said so). As Jefferson stated, it was not picking one religion over another (although that is prohibited too), but simply promoting religion. (I can go into detail as to why chaplains and such are not prohibited, but I don't think that is necessary here.)

"In regards to the First Amendment the word establishment only means to fund a religion with taxes." I don't find support for that anywhere. Perhaps you can provide a citation to something? Again, yes, that would be expressly prohibited, but it is hard to reconcile that view with either the language of the Constitution itself or its interpretation for about 200+ years. Indeed, I can give a few examples of "Establishment" that do not require expenditure of funds, some of which I mentioned earlier but you did not address.
To understand why Madison and Jefferson thought that religions were established by getting funds from the state it helps to read biographies of about them. (I've read about six or seven biographies of Madison and several biographies of Jefferson.) By reading biographies of these two, as I'm sure you have, you learn about the influences on their lives. For Madison and Jefferson one of the things that motivated them was that the Anglican Church was the established religion in the colony of Virginia. The Anglican (Church) religion was established because it was supported by taxes. All Virginians paid taxes to support the Anglicans. They could be members of the religion of their choice but had to pay taxes to support the Anglicans. The Anglicans were [i]the[/i established religion because was supported by taxes while no other religions were.

The state can never straighten the crooked timber of humanity.
I'm a conservative because I question authority.
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