Congress shall pass no laws ...
However some states had state religions at the time of the signing of the constitution, and it was, and I believe, still is, legal.
You are absolutely right. Some of the state churches were not disestablished till the 1830s.
It's going to tick off some people here, but the First Amendment served to prevent a *national* Church but had no intention of abolishing ones already established at lower governmental levels. De Tocqueville tells a story I think from NY where a judge threw out an atheist's testimony on the grounds that though the witness swore on the Bible, his atheism destroyed any possible confidence the court could have in the sanctity of that oath.
My how far we've fallen.
New Hapmshire and Vermont required legislators to be Protestants into the 1870’s, while North Carolina required them to be Christians.
If we really believed in Federalism, with 50 Free States forming a Free County, this sort of thing would be allowed.
This is not an Amendment I issue, but rather an Amendment XIV issue. By barring members of a specific religion from holding office, equal protection is denied. It has nothing at all to do with the restriction placed upon Congress in Amendment I.
Yes, and the civil war decided that Federal law trumps state law.
Furthermore, I don’t WANT this to be allowable. Ever.
You guys would be screaming bloody murder if a state changed it’s constitution to require that only Imams were allowed to serve in public office. This is no different as far as I’m concerned no matter what my personal religion is.
P.S. The Alabama state constitution also said that blacks did not get equal rights, but we found that it didn’t wash Federally either. When it comes to FEDERALLY PROTECTED RIGHTS, United States constitution trumps State Constitution. The author of this piece makes an excellent point that we enjoy that when the SCOTUS upholds the FEDERALLY protected right of the 2nd amendment over local and state attempts to remove that right from us.