An Exegetical Look at the Establishment Clause

montyrainey.wordpress ^ | 10/13/11 | Monty Rainey

[stoney]

Sometimes in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to muddle through the confusion and reveal the basic premise of an object. Such is the case with the First Amendment of the U. S. Bill of Rights, and more specifically, the establishment clause. The First Amendment has fallen under a barrage of hyperbole surrounding what it means and what it doesn’t mean. So-called experts in the field of interpretation have managed, over the years, to drape a veil of confusion and distortion over the First Amendment. This confusion and distortion can easily be corrected by simply recalling our basic elementary language structure and giving an exegetical analysis of the First Amendment, and more specifically, the portion that has become known as the establishment clause.

I don’t want to come off as being condescending, as that is not my intention here. My intention is simply to impart common sense basics of the English language to an issue that has been run amok by those who would have the First Amendment make prohibitions it simply does not make. To begin this analysis, I believe it is essential to first examine the verbiage in the context in which it was written. That is to say, words mean things and sometimes, over the course of time, those meanings change. An example of this would be the word “gay”. A few decades ago, if someone said a man was gay, it meant he was a happy go lucky character. A young reader today would give the sentence a much different meaning. Therefore, it becomes necessary to examine the words of the First Amendment in the context of the time in which they were used. For that, I will use my 1844 Webster’s, Walker pronunciation dictionary as it is the nearest I have of

[stoney]

The 1st Amendment is not that difficult to understand.

[vanilla swirl]

Not difficult to understand unless you have a distorted worldview and try to bend it to your will.