“Capital Lawes

If any man after legal conviction shall have or worship any other God, but the LORD GOD, he shall be put to death. Exod. 22:20, Deut. 13:6 & 10. Deut. 17:2, 6.”

I found this in the Maine Legislative Law Library a few years ago and keep it around for chuckles.

#7) where in the US Constitution is the federal government authorized to own car manufacturers or the health care industry.

haha, trick question, the answer is NOWHERE!

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

That is the exact text from the First Amendment, just in case anyone here has forgotten it. Let’s break that language down, shall we?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion:
Basically, this is saying that our federal and local governments are restricted from declaring any given religion to be the religion of the state that all citizens are required by law to practice. Basically, this provision guarantees each citizen freedom FROM a state established religion. It can also effectively be argued that this provision implies that placement or display of religious artifacts, texts, and/or imagery from any one religion is restricted in that it could then be inferred that the government was endorsing that one religion. Let’s say that you put the Ten Commandments up in a state capitol building. This would be acceptable Only if you Also put up scriptures from many of the world’s other religions. The Ten Commandments by themselves would be an endorsement of only Christianity or Judaism.

prohibiting the free exercise thereof:
This part is saying that neither federal nor local governments can keep people from practicing their faith. If a person’s religion truly says that they are required to evangelize in order to be true to their faith, they cannot be stopped from it. However, I think it could be agreed that these people are limited in where this evangelizing can take place. For instance, I think all would agree that they don’t have the right to break into my home in order to try and convert me.

As far as separation of church and state, people are correct when they say that the Constitution does not state that. However, Thomas Jefferson, the chief architect of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, stated in 1802;
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between church and State.”

So reading this, I submit that even though the specific wording in our founding documents did not say it, it was always implied that there be a separation of church and state.