jim rozen wrote:
In article , Gunner says...

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

You will notice it also forbids the free expression of religion. Not
to mention freedom of speech.

Good, you have the full text there. But you are still uncertain
about what it means. Your comment at the end indicates some
confusion and is flatly incorrect. Lay it out in its entirety,
the authors were quite stingy with words even if dead-on gramatically
correct:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press.
Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people..."

and so on.

The first part is the 'establishment' clause. That guarantees
freedom *from* religion, the govenment cannot create state
religions. The second is the free exercise clause which gives
freedom *of* religion - they cannot ban or restrict it with laws.

Notice this stuff only applies TO THE GOVENMENT. None of this
applies to anyone else - corporations, private individuals, etc.

Im still waiting for your cites on the claim you made about :freedom
From religion:

See comments above. For further details take out a book on constituional
law. But those are the standard views of the document. You can put
whatever spin you want on the document, but if you tried to bluster your
way through a first year law class on it you would be laughed out of
the room.

Jim


That was a good explanation but I'm still confused about the freedom
From religion part. Doesn't the First Amendment say that we're free
From the establishment of a (national) religion and nothing else?

If the establishment clause is so obvious, why is it that our friends
in the ACLU have convinced people that the establishment clause also
means that a grade school can't have a Christmas tree or that a town
can't have the 10 Commandments on public property. They always cite
this establishment thing but that's a huge stretch.

It almost seems like they have used the establishment clause to beat
down the free exercise clause.
GW