After the First Amendment was ratified, 8 of the 13 states levied and collected taxes to support an official state church. This practice continued until the early 1800s, not because the Courts struck it down, but because the People of the States no longer wanted to support an official state church.
Members of the first Congress that ratified the First Amendment voted to appoint and pay a chaplain to pray before each House.
Throughout the US's history, the courts have upheld religious laws, such as:
Congress may pay a chaplain to pray before the sessions, even if one denomination is clearly favored over all the others (Marsh v Chambers)
Taxpayers have no standing to sue against taxpayer-funded faith-based initiatives (Hein v Freedom from Religion)
Taxpayers have no standing to sue on government surpluses given to religious charities without regard to other secular charities (Valley Forge Christian College v Americans United for Separation of Church and State)
Also known as the two-reindeer rule, taxpayers may fund Nativity Scenes, so long as there are secular items displayed with the Nativity (Lynch v Donnelly)
Tax-exemptions for religious organizations are Constitutional (Walz v Tax Comm'n of the City of New York)
A law that "harmonizes with religious canons" is not inherently unconstitutional (McGowan v Maryland)
I could go on and on with historical examples, as well as Court precedent, but I think you get the idea. I have no idea where the concept that religious law is a violation of the First Amendment came from, but it lacks historical context, as well as judicial precedent.
In fact, I'd argue quite the opposite! The First Amendment allows for religious legislations, so long as the receptor of the law is an adult, and therefore not susceptible to religious indoctrination (Tilton v Richardson) or enforced on others via peer pressure (Abington v Schemp). The majority of First Amendment cases have dealt with schools, because children are more susceptible to religious indoctrination, and so the Courts have protected them from government-enforced religion. But adults are certainly not exempt from government-enforced religious laws!
The most common rebuttal I get to this argument is, "I won't enforce my morality on you, so don't enforce your morality on me." This is a fine argument, but it is completely unenforceable, unless we lived in an anarchy! If every federal spending bill had to be within the confines of the moral codes of all 300 million Americans, nothing would get done!
So my questions for debate are the following:
- What would be acceptable religious laws?
- What should the Constitutional limits on religious laws be?
- Even though religious laws are Constitutional, they are not necessary. Should we even legislate our religious values?
- How is anyone harmed by viewing a Ten Commandments display, or listening to a prayer before Congress, or seeing a Nativity scene?
- Would an ideal society be pluralistic or secular?
