[crystalk]

No, the Second Amendment IMO applies to firearms, and mere technical improvement does not render them unprotected, and protects speech and the press, and the mere improvements such as Linotype, Radio, etc are just fast ways to speak, or to "print," including what I am doing now. Those are human technologies.

Similarly, Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church did not exist in 1787, but as a form of Christianity its rights are [or ought to be, I AM chuckling remember] protected by the Consitution.

But Franklin and Jefferson* and Washington would have been horrified to think the evil superstition of the Turk and the Barbary Pirate was protected under the Consitution they were writing.

Yes, Virginia, I know Jefferson was in Paris when the Constitution was being written, but as author of the Declaration of Indep and the Statute of Va for Rel Freedom, he was the de facto source of the Const provision for "F of Relig."

[Dimensio]

But Franklin and Jefferson* and Washington would have been horrified to think the evil superstition of the Turk and the Barbary Pirate was protected under the Consitution they were writing.

If this is the case, then why does the First Amendment not specifically address the matter? Why does it use the general term "religion" rather than the more specific "Christianity and Judaism"? Why were early drafts that were more specific rejected in favour of the text that is there?

[Restorer]

But Franklin and Jefferson* and Washington would have been horrified to think the evil superstition of the Turk and the Barbary Pirate was protected under the Consitution they were writing.

I believe it was Jefferson who during one of the disputes with the Barbay pirates specifically denied that the US was a Christian nation and stated that Muslims would have freedom of religion here.