[tpaine]

--- with the clear understanding that the supremacy clause & the 14th both say the States are bound to honor the US Constitution & BOR's.

It is ludicrous to see a major political figure like Keyes claim that states are free violate our individual rights.
-tpaine-


______________________________________



What's ludicrous is your interpretation of the amendment.

"It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects, thus exemplified in our domestic, as well as in foreign 'annals, that it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject. The situation, too, of the different states equally proclaimed the policy, as Well as the necessity of such an exclusion. . . . "
-Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution


Also from Story, same link, at #1866.

" -- The real difficulty lies in ascertaining the limits, to which government may righttnlly go in fostering and encouraging religion.
Three cases may easily be supposed.

One, where a government affords aid to a particular religion, leaving all persons free to adopt any other;
another, where it creates an ecclesiastical establishment for the propagation of the doctrines of a particular sect of that religion, leaving a like freedom to all others;
and a third, where it creates such an establishment, and excludes all persons, not belonging to it, either wholly, or in part, from any participation in the public honours, trusts, emoluments, privileges, and immunities of the state.

For instance, a government may simply declare, that the Christian religion shall be the religion of the state, and shall be aided, and encouraged in all the varieties of sects belonging to it;
or it may declare, that the Catholic or Protestant religion shall be the religion of the state, leaving every man to the free enjoyment of his own religious opinions;
or it may establish the doctrines of a particular sect, as of Episcopalians, as the religion of the state, with a like freedom;
or it may establish the doctrines of a particular sect, as exclusively the religion of the state, tolerating others to a limited extent, or excluding all, not belonging to it, from all public honours, trusts, emoluments, privileges, and immunities.

---

Story's comments, depending on how you read/emphasize and edit them, can 'back up' any most any conclusion you care to make.
The man was a real ratchet mouth..

Thanks for the link, -- in a way it proves my point more than yours.

[Djarum]

Story's comments, depending on how you read/emphasize and edit them, can 'back up' any most any conclusion you care to make.

He spends several paragraphs explaining why Congress was best restricted from involving itself in religion, what you quoted being an example of such. I quoted the conclusion, where arguments are typically summarized.

Do you have any historical evidence supporting your interpretation?

[TigersEye]

...it was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject.

Except for the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals of course.