The 1st amendment does not read if a person or religious body receives government monies they are necessarily excluded from exercising their religion without government interference. The mandate also applies broadly to include institutions that do not receive any funding. So your point is moot.
What I presented was fact and it was indeed historical fact. I am not too surprised that you did not recognize this.
Please show where under our Constitutional system of government that the “Church” has encroached into government. Are the clergy another branch of government of which I am unaware? Are there special judicial chambers established by the State to hear complaints dealing solely with matters of faith? Do we have trials for heresy in this country? Is there a faith clamoring to become the official religion of this country? Is Obama going on his knees to show that D.C. is worth the price of a Mass? I thought not.
I am curious what other limits do you want to set on our Constitutional rights based on receiving back our own money paid to the government in the form of taxes and fees? Should freedom of the press be curtailed if a government agency provided a tax incentive to hire local unemployed to work in the printing press? Should we accept being searched without a warrant and without probable cause if we receive Social Security Benefits? Should a preacher not be allowed to preach against gambling if his church receives a portion of local tax dollars to operate a soup kitchen?
Our rights are not doled out by a benevolent government as rewards of fidelity and compliance. They are not a matter of quid pro quo. If people do not understand that they deserve to have tyranny descend on this nation. We are not lackeys and lickspittles. Rights are part of the natural law and the editing of them is an assault on freedom.
As Rush has pointed out many times. “government money” is really YOUR money, your money and your neighbor’s money. Therefore it ought not to travel very far from your pocket before it is spent. Federal money is collected far, far from home, and is spent by people far away from you by people you never got to vote far. The principle of subsidarity should be paramount: You money should go the 1) your family, 2) your church or lodge or local charity 3) your local governments, and only lastly to the Federal government.
The only thing you got right there was:
“Our rights are not doled out by a benevolent government as rewards of fidelity and compliance.”
To bad though it had nothing to do with what was said. If you want to start another topic please do so under another topic.
And please, quit torturing history with your distorted views and representing [bad] opinion for fact.