These were some of the most visionary men in history. They may have been culturally, and in many cases religiously, Christian, but they were not narrow-minded men. I can’t believe that they never anticipated that people might come to the US with different religious beliefs and that, if they did, they would not be ‘covered’ by the same principles of religious tolerance that the various Christian denominations were. Or that there would not be times when the federal government would have to intercede in a state’s “business”.
Jews have been here since the 1600s, and have had significant moral and spiritual influence for the good in our society. If we had kept things in the states as some seem to think the Founders intended in this regard, many of those Jews would not have been able to hold public office.
To say that ‘what was the norm back then, cannot be unconstitutional now’ is false, because we have outlawed a number of “norms” from back then – including slavery.
The founders were creating a general, principled system – not dictating how each future, perhaps unforeseeable, issue might be decided by that system and the generations that inherited it.
In this regard, I think it is a special case, and I will address your point further on a later date.
You should read some of the stuff John Adams wrote. It's pretty hard core intolerant from a religious aspect. So too was it among many of the other Founders, especially Benjamin Franklin. If you go further, and look at the writings of the various delegates to the convention, and the delegates to the various state ratifying conventions, it gets even harder to argue they they anticipated other religions being part of American Culture.
Many state constitutions of the time were explicit in stating they were Christian. Many states had "official" state religions at the time. It is unlikely that they would have ratified a document that purports to dilute a doctrine which they had already expressed in their own governing documents.
Jews have been here since the 1600s, and have had significant moral and spiritual influence for the good in our society. If we had kept things in the states as some seem to think the Founders intended in this regard, many of those Jews would not have been able to hold public office.
As I said, I think a lot of people of that era regarded Jews as a special case. All the educated knew that Judaism was the foundation of Christianity, and so I can see them accepting Jews under the umbrella of religious tolerance. I cannot however see that they had any intentions or in fact any thought of accepting Muslims or other religions as belonging in their society, at least not in any great numbers.
To say that ‘what was the norm back then, cannot be unconstitutional now’ is false, because we have outlawed a number of “norms” from back then – including slavery.
Going through the process of amendment is one thing. Making up a new meaning for what they said at the time is another. The question is this: Do we accept their meaning at the time, or do we pretend they meant something different to suit our modern political preferences?
The founders were creating a general, principled system – not dictating how each future, perhaps unforeseeable, issue might be decided by that system and the generations that inherited it.
The Founders were creating a pragmatic method of preventing religious denominational differences between the various states from blowing apart the fragile coalition they had laboriously pieced together.
They knew that if the Federal portion of the Union devolved into religious strife, all the various states would cease to participate in it, and the British could simply come along and collect up the broken pieces.
The thought of making America safe for Pagans never occurred to them. It simply wasn't on their radar at the time.