From: "John Cuccia" 

Do you think those states acting within their "rights"?  The 1st
Amendment prohibits Congress from meddling in religious matters, but
doesn't say anything about the states.

I didn't mean to imply in my earlier message the Oregon's constitution was
either ill-intentioned or unconstitutional, only that it doesn't
necessarily ensure real religious freedom

"Bill Lucy"  wrote in message
news:MPG.138fc0a6408c329e9898fa{at}news.barkto.com...
> In article , jcuccia{at}bigfoot.com says...
> > Jeff,
> >
> > Archaic or not, the language of a law is all there is.  Or do you mean
that we shouldn't take laws at face value?
>
> FWIW, many of the original 13 states contained strange and interesting
wording
> regarding establishment of religion. In the 1777 Constitution of New York,
the
> establishment clause was written thusly -- "That all such parts of the
said
> common law, and all such of the said statutes and acts foresaid, or parts
> thereof, as may be construed to establish or maintain any particular
> denomination of Christians or their ministers..."
>
> In Virginia, if you were Anglican you were okay. If you were a Baptist
preacher
> you might be jailed. This wasn't considered Constitutional, but Baptist
> preachers wouldn't use the Anglican book of Common Prayer, and there was a
> holdover law from the colony that required that it be used.
>
> The 1780 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts required weekly
> church attendance. It didn't name the church, but it was almost always
> Congregational. And it was Sunday worship, too.
>
> The original Constitution of the State of Connecticut didn't provide for
> establishment, but Connecticut law did -- and it was Congregational.
>
> The 1776 Constitution of Maryland had a clause which was pretty direct --
"yet
> the Legislature may , in their discretion, lay a general and equal tax,
for the
> support of the Christian religion..."
>
> [from "The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment" by
Leonard
> W. Levy, ISBN0-02-897245-7]
>

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