[af_vet_1981]

This idea was best encapsulated by Voltaire in the quote “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Voltaire was antiChristian and antisemitic.

In a letter to Frederick II, King of Prussia, dated 5 January 1767, he wrote about Christianity: La nôtre [religion] est sans contredit la plus ridicule, la plus absurde, et la plus sanguinaire qui ait jamais infecté le monde.[127] "Our [religion] is assuredly the most ridiculous, the most absurd and the most bloody religion which has ever infected this world. Your Majesty will do the human race an eternal service by extirpating this infamous superstition, I do not say among the rabble, who are not worthy of being enlightened and who are apt for every yoke; I say among honest people, among men who think, among those who wish to think. … My one regret in dying is that I cannot aid you in this noble enterprise, the finest and most respectable which the human mind can point out."[128][129]

According to Orthodox rabbi Joseph Telushkin, the most significant Enlightenment hostility against Judaism was found in Voltaire;[140] thirty of the 118 articles in his Dictionnaire philosophique dealt with Jews and described them in consistently negative ways.[141][142] For example, in Voltaire's A Philosophical Dictionary, he wrote of Jews: "In short, we find in them only an ignorant and barbarous people, who have long united the most sordid avarice with the most detestable superstition and the most invincible hatred for every people by whom they are tolerated and enriched."[143]

[thoughtomator]

And yet, despite that, it remains the foundation of the First Amendment.

Would you care to also engage in character assassination of the Founders who thought the idea had enough merit to make it the First Amendment?