These historical points are interesting, but the overall point -- and one of the key points of the original article -- is that separation of church and state is essential to a free society. Jefferson and Madison were absolutely correct on this point. We have the benefit of more than 5,000 years of human history to illustrate the consequences of people who try to impose their particular religion on the rest of us. We saw it in spades during the Dark and Middle Ages, the heyday of religious rule. We see it today in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia, as well as in the Islamofascist terrorist movement. In sum, theocracy and religious fanaticism, in all of their forms, is hazardous to human life and well-being.
Again historically inaccurate. The 14th Amendment was never intended to apply the establishment clause to the states. That is evidenced by the Blaine Amendment which failed and 14 other attempts to begin the amendment process in Congress applying the 1st Amendment to the states.
The 14th Amendment was intended to protect the individual rights of all US citizens. A worthy cause. The establishment clause was a restraint on the federal government, not an individual right.
Of note here is that all the states managed to disestablish state religions without the omnipotent 14th Amendment and it's penumbras.
But that's neither here nor there. The Constitution never required the banning of religion from the public square. Quite the contrary as evidenced by Article 1 Section 7 of the US Constituion which proscribes doing business on Sunday, a bow to the Fourth Commandment. More to the point the founders acknowledged that rights come from God, "the Creator", not from the state, the SCOTUS or Presidents writing letters to Danbury Baptists.
Banning of religion from the public square is Marxist, not Jeffersonian.
Which brings us to your final paragraph. Undoubtedly in times past there has been lots of killing and mayhem due to religion and there is to this day. But if you want to go purely on a numbers basis Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot et al have religion beat by miles and there deeds have been in the recent past, not ancient history.
You can argue that God shoul be banned from the public square because it offends some folk but you can't do it honestly from a historical or Constitutional basis.
If you want God and religion banned from public you should do it honestly be amending the Constitution to do just that and not rely on judicial activism whne it accords with your ideology. When they come for your guns don't be surprised if they find a right to be free of weapons in the 14th Amendment.
Are you sure about that?
Taken from the book description of "Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution."
James Madison admitted it after Gouverneur Morris died: Madison held the title "Father of the Constitution," but the "finish given to the style and arrangement of the Constitution fairly belongs to the pen of Mr. Morris." The author of the great Preamble to the Constitution and much of the rest of the document was a wealthy, raffish New Yorker who was above all things a loyal son of the American Revolution.