The First Amendment Religion Clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” This book takes an in-depth look at the religion clause portion of the First Amendment using historical documents and letters. In chapter one examples are given of the historical reasons for why the Framers of the First Amendment (the Founding Fathers) thought it was necessary to list religion as part of the Bill of Rights in the manner that they did. In chapter two documentation is presented showing how they applied it during their times of service in government. The application of the 14th Amendment is examined along with whether or not it should be applied to the 1st Amendment based on the history of both. In chapter three a complete analysis is made of Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” letter, and in chapter four an in-depth investigation is taken into Jefferson’s Virginian Act for Establishing Religious Freedom, James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, and Madison’s Detached Memoranda essay on religion and government interaction. These documents, along with others examined in this book, display the Founding Fathers’ views as to why there is a religious clause, and what its proper application should be between church (that is, religion) and state. This book also contains present day solutions for how the government could act legally and constitutionally regarding religion (and related religious books) and toward those who claim religious reasons as their motivation to physically harm others. History reveals the continued purpose and need for the Religion Clause in the Bill of Rights.

"The relationship between the government and religion is deeply divisive. With the recent changes in the composition of the Supreme Court, the First Amendment law concerning religion is likely to change dramatically in the years ahead. The Court can be expected to reject the idea of a wall separating church and state and permit much more religious involvement in government and government support for religion. The Court is also likely to expand the rights of religious people to ignore legal obligations that others have to follow, such laws that require the provision of health care benefits to employees and prohibit businesses from discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation. This book argues for the opposite and the need for separating church and state. After carefully explaining all the major approaches to the meaning of the Constitution's religion clauses, the book argues that the best approaches are for the government to be strictly secular and for there to be no special exemptions for religious people from neutral and general laws that others must obey. The book argues that this separationist approach is most consistent with the concerns of the founders who drafted the Constitution and with the needs of a religiously pluralistic society in the 21st century"--

The First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution begins: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . ." The Supreme Court has consistently held that these words, usually called the "religion clauses," were meant to prohibit laws that violate religious freedom or equality. In recent years, however, a growing number of constitutional law and history scholars have contended that the religion clauses were not intended to protect religious freedom, but to reserve the states' rights to legislate on. If the states' rights interpretation of the religion clauses were correct and came to be accepted by the Supreme Court, it could profoundly affect the way the Court decides church-state cases involving state laws. It would allow the states to legislate on religion-even to violate religious freedom, discriminate on the basis of religion, or to establish a particular religion. This book carefully, thoroughly, and critically examines all the arguments for such an interpretation and, more importantly, all the available historical evidence. It concludes that the clauses were meant to protect religious freedom and equality of the individuals not the states' rights

At a time when the concept of religion-based politics has taken on new and sometimes ominous tones--even within the United States--it is not only right, but also urgently necessary that William Lee Miller revisit his profound exploration of the place of religious liberty and church and state in America. For this revised edition of The First Liberty, Miller has written a pointed new introduction, discussing how religious liberty has taken on deeper dimensions in a post-9/11 world. With new material on recent Supreme Court cases involving church-state relations and a new concluding chapter on America's religious and political landscape, this volume is an eloquent and thorough interpretation of how religious faith and political freedom have blended and fused to form part of our collective history-and most importantly, how each concept must respect the boundaries of the other. Though many claim the United States to be a "Christian Nation," Miller provides a fascinatingly vivid account of the philosophical skirmishes and political machinations that led to the "wall of separation" between church and state. That famous phrase is Jefferson's, though it does not appear in the Declaration of Independence nor in the Constitution. But Miller follows this seminal idea from three great standard-bearers of religious liberty: Jefferson, Madison, and Roger Williams. Jefferson, who wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the precursor of the First Amendment of the Constitution; James Madison, who was politically responsible for Virginia's acceptance of religious liberty and who, a few years later, helped draft the Bill of Rights; and the even earlier figure, the radical dissenter Roger Williams, who propounded the idea of religious freedom not as a rational secularist but out of a deeply held spiritual faith. Miller re-creates the fierce and vibrant debate among the founding fathers over the means of establishing public virtue in the absence of established religion--a debate that still reverberates in today's passionate arguments about civil rights, school prayer, abortion, Christmas crèches, conscientious objection during warfare--and demonstrates how the right to hold any religious belief has dynamically shaped American political life.

Leonard Levy's classic work examines the circumstances that led to the writing of the establishment clause of the First Amendment: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. . . .' He argues that, contrary to popular belief, the framers of the Constitution intended to prohibit government aid to religion even on an impartial basis. He thus refutes the view of 'nonpreferentialists, ' who interpret the clause as allowing such aid provided that the assistance is not restricted to a preferred church.For this new edition, Levy has added to his original arguments and incorporated much new material, including an analysis of Jefferson's ideas on the relationship between church and state and a discussion of the establishment clause cases brought before the Supreme Court since the book was originally published in 1986.

The First Amendment guarantee that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" rejected the millennium-old Western policy of supporting one form of Christianity in each nation and subjugating all other faiths. The exact meaning and application of this American innovation, however, has always proved elusive. Individual states found it difficult to remove traditional laws that controlled religious doctrine, liturgy, and church life, and that discriminated against unpopular religions. They found it even harder to decide more subtle legal questions that continue to divide Americans today: Did the constitution prohibit governmental support for religion altogether, or just preferential support for some religions over others? Did it require that government remove Sabbath, blasphemy, and oath-taking laws, or could they now be justified on other grounds? Did it mean the removal of religious texts, symbols, and ceremonies from public documents and government lands, or could a democratic government represent these in ever more inclusive ways? These twelve essays stake out strong and sometimes competing positions on what "no establishment of religion" meant to the American founders and to subsequent generations of Americans, and what it might mean today.