Thomas Jefferson, as a state legislator, voted for laws respecting the establishement of religion.
Now what?
"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson: Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779.
"[The clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me [as President] will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion." - Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800.
"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." - Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson's Works, Vol. IV, p. 365, Randolph's ed.
EXCUSE ME?