The first amendment has two clauses respecting religion: the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Do you contend that the original intent was identical for both? If not, what right do you think was being established by the Establishment clause that's distinct from the Free Exercise Clause? Why do you think the original signers thought they had to say the same thing twice? Why aren't there other examples of this rather careless habit other places in the Bill of Rights?
As with the gun control freaks who can't understand the straightforward and consistent nature of the Bill of Rights--it's not that you're right, it's not that you're wrong--it's that you aren't even in the game.
from: "The Establishment Clause" by Leonard Levy
The history of the drafting of the establishment clause does not provide us with an understanding of what was meant by “an establishment of religion.” To argue, however, as proponents of a narrow interpretation do, that the amendment permits congressional aid and support to religion in general or to all denominations without discrimination, leads to the impossible conclusion that the First Amendment added to Congress’s power. Nothing supports such a conclusion. Every bit of evidence goes to prove that the First Amendment, like the others, was intended to restrict Congress to its enumerated powers. Because Congress possessed no power under the Constitution to legislate on matters concerning religion, Congress has no such power even in the absence of the First Amendment. It is therefore unreasonable, even fatuous, to believe that an express prohibition of power—“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”—vests or creates the power, previously nonexistent, of supporting religion by aid to all religious groups. The Bill of Rights, as Madison said, was not framed “to imply powers not meant to be included in the enumeration.”
I have before me my worn copies of "Original Meaning" by Rakove and "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution" by Bailyn. Both are Pulitzer Prize winning examples of exemplary scholarship on this matter.
I direct your attention to Bailyn pp 96-99, from which I briefly quote: "...fear of the conjunction of civil and ecclesiastical tyrannies was central to John Adam's understanding of American history and the revolutionary crisis..." (this from Samuel Adams) and to Rakove p 310 from which I briefly quote Madison's own words concerning his education: "under very early and strong impressions in favor of liberty both civil and religeous"
Madison caused the Virginia Bill of Rights of 1776 to be altered from the anemic "The fullest toleration..." to "all men are equally entitled..." for the very stated purpose of preventing such things as the ecumenical assessments of the 1780's which is more famous (at least, to the Supreme Court) for opposing.
How anyone in their right mind can think that the establishment clause means anything other than what it most obviously says, taken in context with the government-limiting reason for the Bill of Rights, strains my capacity for astonishment--and yet it continues to crop up. Sometimes I dispair for the republic.
After proposing this amendment, he was a member of the committee of eleven to consider it, and then was the head of the House conference committee that negotiated with the Senate to produce its current wording.35 Because of Madison's, "nor shall any national religion be established," accommodationists have ballyhooed that his intent for the establishment clause was only that it prevent a national establishment and not the larger and more encompassing separation of the Remonstrance. But Samuel Livermore, an Episcopalian from New Hampshire, proposed an improvement on Madison's wording:
"Congress shall make no law touching religion, or infringing the right of conscience."
Madison promptly withdrew his proposed amendment and Livermore's passed the House, 34 to 20. This fact is not mentioned by those who hang on the apparent meaning of Madison's first draft.36 The lack of notes kept in the Senate's secret deliberations on the amendments has not kept hidden the fact that the more accommodationist amendments proposed--which would be what Rehnquist and the Religious Right would want in abundance--were twice rejected. As William Lee Miller concludes: "One may be allowed to infer that the majority in the Senate intended something more in the way of separation."37 Some think the eventual wording from the conference committee was written by Madison.
The Establishment clause means that the federal government can not pick a single religious sect and establish it as the official religion of the US, supporting it with tax dollars. The Free Exercise clause means that no individuals or groups shall be limited by the government in practising their particular election. This is clearly two different ideas, and could have been passed as a separate Amendment, but the committee that wrote the amendment put them both in the First Amendment.
I notice in passing that you have not been able to cite a single word written or spoken in the Amendment process which supports your viewpoint.