Of course the document actually says that:
"CONGRESS can pass no law. . ."
Many people get that wrong, just like they think the phrase "separation of church and state" appears in the Constitution--it doesn't. those were the private rants of Jefferson--not the actual law.
Just thought that might need to me pointed out.
Carry on. . .
Originally Posted by ANONONE
Thanks for the legal education. I must have missed that in my three years of law school. You apparently missed the "incorporation doctrine" in your three years of law school. Read up on it.
The First Amendment was incorporated against the States in
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947). So despite those who would simplistically read only the literal language of the First Amendment and think that is the entire content of the law, the Free Exercise Clause fully applies against the States and any subdivision thereof.
And I'm as well aware of Jefferson coining the phrase "wall of separation between church and state" as I am of George Washington's Letter to the Jewish Congregation at Newport, which states, in relevant part, "
For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."
I would argue that the government aiding others in treating law abiding Muslims as second class citizens because some co-religionist extremists amongst their numbers somewhere in the world committed crimes is to give bigotry sanction, and persecution assistance.
Not to mention James Madison, the man who wrote the Constitution, who wrote,
"And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
(Also from Madison, for those of you who actually believe in God:
"Whilst we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us. If this freedom be abused, it is an offense against God, not against man: To God, therefore, not to man, must an account of it be rendered."
So he would argue that it's not your fellow man you offend by denigrating the entire Muslim religion by conflating it with the believe of a few nuts, and denying it's law abiding members the same freedom you enjoy, but it is God himself who you offend! He was one smart SOB, wasn't he!
)
Interesting Grasshopper. 
