"fred White" wrote in part:
> Remembering that the Bill of Rights was created on September 25, 1789
> and ratified on December 15, 1791, it follows that the "free" in the
> "free exercise thereof" phrase couldn't possibly have been referring to
> "tax free" since US taxation didn't begin until the middle of the 19th
> century, around the time of the Civil War.
So, the Bill of Rights does not refer to anything that did not exist at the
time at which they were written? I believe that the courts, ridiculous
though they may be, have held the opposite view, that those principles must
be applied to whatever our circumstances and innovations are. So, the right
to free exercise applies to whatever establishments of religion may appear
in our land; the right to free speech applies to whatever forms that may
take, including new test media, as well as our broadcast media. The right to
bear arms applies to newer arms. And so on.

Now, I cannot imagine any establishment of religion that does not include at
least the possibility of a meeting of its adherents, and such assembly of
people will burden the infrastructure, whether they meet in a corporately
owned property or a private domicile. But we do not tax infrastructure per
capita, nor do I imagine that we could. It might be appropriate for the
historians among us to revisit these decisions that making no law respecting
an establishment of religion both means not preferring one over another
(Monroe comes to mind), as well as leaving them unmolested by undue burdens
of regulation or taxation. This is the only point on which I agree with
Libertarians about freedom from regulation: except where it affects safety,
we should be unmolested by the burden of regulation.

Greg Stigers, MCP
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