>Thus the federal government would be directly supporting
>religions.  I believe this would be
>in direct conflict of the constitution.

Not to particularly pick on this posting, but it would be *so* much nicer if
people who want to talk about the Constitution--and especially about "direct
conflict" with it--would actually read it first. In this case, the issue of
governmental support is completely irrelevant as far as the Bill of Rights
is concerned. The Amendment specifically--and exclusively--prohibits
Congress ("Congress shall make no law") from any attempt to *control*
religious expression, either prescriptively ("respecting an establishment of
religion,") or proscriptively ("or prohibiting the free exercise thereof").
And that's it. All this stuff about "separation of Church and State" is in
the same league as the "Good Times" hoax: people passing on something they
hear, with no one stopping to check the facts. And, like the game of
"telephone" we played as children, the story diverges ever farther from the
truth as it is retold.

Another popular myth regards the First Amendment protection of free speech.
As one typical example, an article in Friday's Seattle P-I is on the Amazon
layoffs, and the severance agreement Amazon is using to reduce negative
commentary by laid-off employees. One of the paragraphs talks about a local
worker's alliance claims that "the non-disparaging clause raises
labor-relations issues, as well as first amendment free-speech questions
that the organization plans to challenge." As anyone who takes even a
cursory glance at the document can see, this banner-waving is totally
unsupported by fact. The First Amendment specifically prohibits Congress
(the same "Congress shall make no law" as above) from "abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the press;". That's it; it applies only to creation of
national laws. Not to individual states, not to individual people, not to
organizations, not to business entities, natural or synthetic. As an
individual or an employer, there's nothing prohibiting me from restricting
the speech of anyone I like, as long as I don't do it by some illegal means,
like force or extortion. Even then, the violation is not of a
constitutionally-protected entitlement, but of a criminal statute.

Finally, one that came up recently: the situation where someone wins the
Presidency by winning the electoral vote even when he loses the popular
vote. Bzzzzt; there's no such thing as "popular vote" regarding the election
of the President or Vice President, and there never has been. Article II
very clearly specifies a system where the states--not the people--cast the
votes: "But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by
states,...". In fact, there is no requirement that the citizenry at large
have any involvement of any kind in the process; the requirement on
selecting Electors is that "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the
Legislature thereof may direct,...". As far as the Constitution is
concerned, a particular state could choose its Electors by random selection,
or by holding a foot race, or by selling the seats to the highest bidders.

Considering the time and conditions of its birth (actually, even *not*
considering them), the "Constitution of the United States of America" is a
pretty amazing document; you ought to read it some time.