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.
You both may be right about the Civil War/14th amendment. I hadn’t considered that angle. I’d have to look at the language of the 14, but I’m beginning to suspect it was poorly written to allow such wide latitude. :)
On the rights issue that autumnraine brings up. No government local, state, or federal, has the authority to legislate against the God-given rights of man. That’s right in the Declaration. But no man has a God-given right to a disestablished government. Freedom from coercion yes. But not freedom from a national church.
Autumnraine, I get what you’re saying about imams, but I think what we are seeing now, a tyranny of secularism, shows that blanket disestablishment may well not be the way to go either. Soon we very well may have a religious test for office—if you are religious, you can’t hold office. Now how that’s better than an established church I have no idea.