State Churches? Justice Clarence Thomas Hears the Call (from 2014)

[steve2470]

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/05/09/justice-clarence-thomas-and-the-church-of-virginia/

While the rest of the Supreme Court argued Monday over the constitutional limits on official prayers at town board meetings, one justice said the question may be beside the point.

In a separate opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that while the First Amendment “probably prohibits Congress from establishing a national religion,” it wasn’t intended to restrict states from adopting their own official religions. Under this view, not only could state or local officials ordain religious exercises for their meetings, they could use tax dollars to fund an official church. He cites the clause “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” saying that “choice of language…effectively denied Congress any power to regulate state establishments.”

After all, “at least six States had established churches in 1789,” Justice Thomas wrote. Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire “maintained local-rule establishments whereby the majority in each town could select the minister and religious denomination (usually Congregationalism, or ‘Puritanism’).” Georgia and Maryland “permitted taxation in support of all Christian churches,” while South Carolina limited its subsidy to “all Protestant churches,” he added. And while Delaware, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island “had no history of formal establishments,” they “maintained religious tests for office.”

Such diversity regarding official religions “suggests that the First Amendment was simply agnostic on the subject of state establishments; the decision to establish or disestablish religion was reserved to the states,” he wrote.

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