English 101: the word "thereof" in the Free Exercise Clause gets its entire meaning from that to which it refers in the Establishment Clause. Proper English grammar therefore verifies the lack of conflict between the two clauses:
Congress shall make no law ... prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Of what? Of "religion." Not of an "establishment of religion." Your distortion of the wording would have Congress unable to prohibit the free exercise of an "establishment of religion." Congress cannot establish religion, and the exercise of religion cannot be prohibited, which means totally. I am the strict constructionist. You proposition is a revision and is erroneous. Which is why I dropped membership in the ACLU long ago.
Gene Garman
America's Real Religion
americasrealreligion.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
If "Establishment of Religion" has a known and definite meaning in the context of its adoption with the rest of what became the First Amendment, why do we have to "get real" in a way that inflates new meanings, new limitations, and new disparagements of religion into that text?As a strict constructionist, I am confident that Establishment of Religion had quite a precise meaning and would not be understood by its drafters as limiting Bible week proclamations, the erection of Decalogue monuments, or the imprecations of a prosecutor in the sentencing phase of scriptural admonitions against murder and the like. All that extra baggage is the consequence of the Justices, like naughty baggage handlers at the airport, opening the First Amendment, dumping out its clear and precise meaning, and then repacking amendatory luggage with preferred, seccularizing articles.Jim HendersonSenior CounselACLJ
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