Congress Shall Make No Law

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States may well be one of the most important.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, OR prohibiting the FREE exercise thereof...

It seems so much of this part of the Amendment gets completely ignored or missed as though it didn't exist.

By the behavior and words of many you would think it say, "Congress shall make any mention of religion or public prayer and shall prohibit it at every opportunity due to separation of church and state" and then just stop there.

It does not say anything like this and contrary to popular opinion there is NO WALL of separation of church and state to be found anywhere in the constitution.

The Amendment above make it very clear... Congress shall make NO LAW. It does not say anything about not being able to mention religion or hold and express religious views while you are in any public office. It say they can't pass any laws to establish a religion. This means no legislation about it... such as passing a law that you must have the ten commandments in every public building.

They also usually stop after the mention of establishing to the point that you would think that's all it addresses. They don't want you to read the constitution for yourself and if they establish some overemphasis on some section or phrase it is that much more likely that you'll miss the rest of what it says.

It goes further than that though and it is a shame they stop after the "establishment clause" it is called a clause because it is part of a full sentence. What it says after the rules on establishing a religion is that the government is equally constrained from pass any laws that would prohibit the free exercise of religion.

This is the part of the clause that is always left off. Even worse it seems that many think based on the separation of church and state (again not in the constitution) that the congress and other legislators have some obligation to have laws in place to restrict certain exercises of religion. These things include such things as not being able to pray at school even, or have the ten commandments in a public office at all. They say this because, again, they leave off the word and concept of creating a LAW. It doesn't say that they shall do nothing that even smacks of religious action or support and this was never intended.

By preventing these and many other things they are actually establishing laws that do prohibit the free exercise of religion. Free exercise means you can pray anywhere you want. It means you can carry the bible or the koran, it means you preach the gospel if you please. All of these and many more things are parting of exercising your religion freely.

The reason there isn't more outrage about this is because there has come about a political correctness in our nation that makes those who hold religious beliefs feel they don't have the right to "push" their beliefs on others, and because others make us feel that doing so is something so offensive to their individual rights that we should not be aloud to do it.

I suppose the second class of people doesn't realize that by supporting the silence of other people's point of view on religion they may soon find their own right to believe as they please curtailed. They may not be allowed to discuss humanism, or atheism publicly.

The founding fathers were very deliberate about what they wrote and unlike our modern leaders who write 1000's of pages hoping they'll hit the things they want the founding fathers were very specific and clear about what should and should not be a protected right in the constitution if people were to remain free.

It is the constant editing out of the second clause on freedom of religion that has given the politically correct people the power they've gained to almost eliminate religion from public life. The government now feels they are merely consenting to allow us to continue the private practice of our religion, but that is of course as long as it doesn't become public or offend anyone else.

Consider the new hate laws they are trying to pass. Would these not prohibit at least certain aspects of the free exercise of at least certain religions?

If you don't have a problem with them violating the First Amendment in such a way than you are part of the problem as well as an active participant in the demise of the constitution. If we allow certain aspects of the various amendments to be removed without the proper amendment process then we are essentially casting aside the constitution. If one right can be taken so can others and such we are now seeing.

Consider carefully when you side with any group that would set aside all or part of any right granted by the constitution simply because they or you find it offensive. Your rights will be next and soon the constitution will be meaningless.

It will serve you well to read the constitution very carefully and bear it in mind when you hear different decisions coming down from our legislators, judges and presidents.

Be warned your rights will be next!