What the Constitution clearly does say is that the state shall not establish a church or a religion to be the national church. What they clearly wished to prevent was a situation where, for instance, the Episcopal Church might be the official state church and followers of other faiths or denominations, such as Lutherans and Catholics and Methodists, might be persecuted. The writers of the Constitution were close enough to the historical events, such as the persecution of the Pilgrims in England, to be aware of and want to prevent such an evil. It was sad to see AMNews give lip service and implicit support to this ironic perversion of constitutional law and the founding fathers' thinking behind it. You were right in pointing to the dissent by Judge Donald P. Lay.
Denominational preference is exactly what the Constitution does prevent the state from doing.
I want to live in a country where the government does not favor one denomination over another. I also want to live in a country where there is not a public and state bias against religion. As Dr. Lewer's letter points out, such acceptance of the phrase is not universal. But in practice that has not been absolute. Back to top.