No coercion on religious belief.
In CT, the Danbury Baptists were not allowed to perform certain religious rituals and were taxed to support the pay of Congregationalist ministers. Jefferson and others quite rightly did not like this.
Again remember, at the time of ratification, 9 states had Christian religions. Before ratification in Art VI, the only religious reference was that there would not be a religious test for government office.
Note: The Declaration of Independence has four references to God called Supreme Being and Creator in other places. I don’t think they had a Mayan God in their minds.
>>The Declaration of Independence has four references to God called Supreme Being and Creator in other places.
Yet Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of independence, had this to say:
"Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting "Jesus Christ," so that it would read "A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;" the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination."
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom