[GodGunsGuts]

==Do you concede that the Bill of Rights was not taken “verbatim” from the Virginia declaration of rights?

I didn't say verbatim. I said almost verbatim.

==Do you concede that Thomas Jefferson influenced James Madison to include a Bill of Rights?

I never denied Jefferson convinced Madison it's better to get “half a loaf” than no loaf at all.

==Do you concede that James Madison is “the Father of the Constitution” and the AUTHOR of the Bill of Rights?

I have never denied that Madison is the father of the constitution. But please explain what you mean by author of the Bill of Rights? Madison got a bunch of proposed amendments from the various state conventions (mostly based on Mason's “master draft”) which he distilled down into amendment proposals. The Congress debated, deliberated, made changes to, and ultimately rejected Madison's version, that would have incorporated the changes into the body of the Constitution itself. So, as you can see, even calling Madison the “author” (as opposed to Mason, who is the true father of the Bill of Rights) is problematic. Given the above, I think "editor" would be a much better word describe Madison's role re: the Bill of Rights.

[allmendream]

By author of the Bill of Rights I mean that the person who took pen to paper and wrote the actual words that went into the Bill of Rights was James Madison. Editor would suggest he gave no intellectual input to the content. Why do you find it necessary to try to denigrate the Father of our Constitution? Just because his ideas about what the first Amendment meant disagrees with your own?