Borillar
Platinum Member
- Jun 4, 2012
- 10,745
- 4,348
Not when it was written, as I've already pointed out.BTW, the 1st amendment was written to forbid only the Federal government from interfering with people's freedom of religion. Not the states.
When the Bill of Rights was written and ratified, most states had official state religions, and the 1st was carefully phrased to not conflict with that. That's why it starts, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof...".
The 2nd amendment, on the other hand, was designed to apply to all governments: Federal, state, and local. It has no language restricting it to only one level of government.
The later ratification of the 14th amendment changed the scope of provisions like the 1st amendment which (at first) referred only to the Fed.
The first amendment applies to states.
Of course they could. But they didn't. They merely required everyone to be Protestant.For instance, New York could not require everyone to worhsip the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The New York state law on this was often not enforced very much, but it was on the books. And remained on the books for nearly a century after the Bill of Rights was enacted... and quite constitutionally.
As I pointed out, the 1st amendment was carefully crafted to not interfere with States' authority to enact official state religions... as most states did at the time.
Sorry they missed your preferred religion (Worshippers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster), but they mandated quite a few others. Hope you don't mind.
Hallelujahgobble!