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<blockquote data-quote="Pullman Brown" data-source="post: 5999769" data-attributes="member: 73012">Because separation of church and state is a separation of governments, I am entirely in favor of the First Amendment. I don’t believe that we should select one denomination and make it The Church of the United States—the way the Anglican Church is the Church of England, or the Lutheran Church is the Church of Denmark. We did not want (and I still do not want) a formal established church at the federal level. That would be bone-headed and unconstitutional.Established churches at the state level would be bone-headed but NOT unconstitutional. When the Constitution was adopted, most of the states had an official religious position. What year did North Carolina stop being Anglican? The year was 1875, almost a century after 1776. What year did New Hampshire stop being Congregationalist? Well, that was 1877. What year did Maryland stop being Anglican? That was 1867. I don’t think formal church establishment is a good idea, but it was certainly going on. And the people who ratified the Constitution obviously did not believe that official support for a particular Christian denomination at the state level was in any way inconsistent with the First Amendment.DW</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Pullman Brown, post: 5999769, member: 73012"] Because separation of church and state is a separation of [I]governments[/I], I am entirely in favor of the First Amendment. I don’t believe that we should select one denomination and make it The Church of the United States—the way the Anglican Church is the Church of England, or the Lutheran Church is the Church of Denmark. We did not want (and I still do not want) a formal established church at the federal level. That would be bone-headed and unconstitutional. Established churches at the state level would be bone-headed but NOT unconstitutional. When the Constitution was adopted, most of the states had an official religious position. What year did North Carolina stop being Anglican? The year was 1875, almost a century after 1776. What year did New Hampshire stop being Congregationalist? Well, that was 1877. What year did Maryland stop being Anglican? That was 1867. I don’t think formal church establishment is a good idea, but it was certainly going on. And the people who ratified the Constitution obviously did not believe that official support for a particular Christian denomination at the state level was in any way inconsistent with the First Amendment. DW [/QUOTE]

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