WI: No Freedom of Religon in the US

I agree with those who say that nothing in the First Amendment religious establishment and free exercise clauses would prohibit the States from having established churches anyway. However, the absence of such a "religious freedom" amendment at the federal level would, I think, have many long lasting effects.

1. In the absence of a federal-level policy, there would be no pressure on states with established churches to abandon the practice. Americans in those states would trend (like Europeans in the past century) to take this for granted and become less motivated to exercise any religious preference. America today is so religious precisely because there is no established church and for all religious people the choice is a personal committment.

2. Without the "free exercise" clause, unpopular or minority religions like Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses, would be more aggressively persecuted by states and the federal government. Even if unpopular religions were not out right banned, their right to prostlytize and publically worship might be banned and the States could ban specific practices since there would be no specific protection for religious values.

3. Major impact on the sources and eventual location of immigration. I suspect that many people who immigrated to the US in part to avoid religious persecution in the 19th century (particularly Jews, eastern European moslems, and Roman Catholics) might go elsewhere.

4. My own guess is that the US as a whole would become more "Christian" and "Protestant" overall but some states (particularly those in the former Mexican SW USA and Louisiana) would retain their distinctive Catholic flavor. Perhaps, some sort of vaguely Ecumenical civic religion might evolve and be formally established that attempted to draw all Christian sects(and perhaps even Jews) into a broad American Church that combined "americanism" with broad Judeo-Christian precepts. To some extent, that is unofficial practice today anyway.
 
You might get some thing like the Penal laws in Ireland, only this time in America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_Laws_%28Ireland%29

So no right bear arms for people who are not part of the state religion.

and a religious tax to be paid by everyone to the state religion some thing like the tithe in Ireland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe#Ireland

I think the first is unlikely since its purpose was ultimately to oppress and force compliance on an occupied people. Plus, assuming there was still a 2nd Amendment right to bear arms in the US, this would trump any state laws that restricted this particular freedom.

The second seems not only possible but likely if there was no "freedom of exercise" clause in the constitution. This actually was unofficial practice in Utah until very recently: private Mormon employers routinely withheld a church tax or tithe from the paychecks of their employees regardless of their religion.
 
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Connecticut had a state church until 1818!

IIRC New Hampshire had the wages of Episcopalian priests paid partially through taxes until the late 19th Century.

The Establishment Clause, from an originalist perspective, only applies to Congress. It was only in the 20th Century that it was applied to all levels of government, and even then only after established religions had faded out.
 
I think the first is unlikely since its purpose was ultimately to oppress and force compliance on an occupied people. Plus, assuming there was still a 2nd Amendment right to bear arms in the US, this would trump any state laws that restricted this particular freedom.

The purpose was to stop people practising the Roman Catholic faith and any other faith that was not Anglican. All you had to do was to become an Anglican and them you could own land bear arms and be elected to parliament or join the army.
 
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Morty Vicar

Banned
You might get some thing like the Penal laws in Ireland, only this time in America.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_Laws_(Ireland)

So no right bear arms for people who are not part of the state religion.

and a religious tax to be paid by everyone to the state religion some thing like the tithe in Ireland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe#Ireland

Or just some good old-fashioned pogroms against Jews and Protestants like they had in the Republic of Ireland. Make north America, or part of it Catholic, let in some protestants and jews, then have a north American Inquisition!
 
Or just some good old-fashioned pogroms against Jews and Protestants like they had in the Republic of Ireland. Make north America, or part of it Catholic, let in some protestants and jews, then have a north American Inquisition!

There has been no pogroms against Jews in the Rep of Ireland.
The last pogrom was in Limerick city in 1904 when Ireland was still part of the UK.
The Limerick Boycott, sometimes known as the Limerick Pogrom, was an economic boycott waged against the small Jewish community in Limerick, Ireland, for over two years in the first decade of the twentieth century. It was accompanied by a number of assaults, stone throwing and intimidation which caused many Jews to leave the city. It was instigated in 1904 by a Redemptorist priest, Father John Creagh. According to an RIC report 5 Jewish families left Limerick "owing directly to the agitation" and 26 families
remained.[1]
Father Creagh was moved by his superiors initially to Belfast and then to an island in the Pacific Ocean. In 1914 he was promoted by the Pope to be Vicar Apostolic of Kimberley, Western Australia, a position he held until 1922.[24] He died in Wellington, New Zealand in 1947.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_Boycott

I do not remember any pogrom in the Rep of Ireland against protestant.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
There has been no pogroms against Jews in the Rep of Ireland.
The last pogrom was in Limerick city in 1904 when Ireland was still part of the UK.
The Limerick Boycott, sometimes known as the Limerick Pogrom, was an economic boycott waged against the small Jewish community in Limerick, Ireland, for over two years in the first decade of the twentieth century. It was accompanied by a number of assaults, stone throwing and intimidation which caused many Jews to leave the city. It was instigated in 1904 by a Redemptorist priest, Father John Creagh. According to an RIC report 5 Jewish families left Limerick "owing directly to the agitation" and 26 families
remained.[1]
Father Creagh was moved by his superiors initially to Belfast and then to an island in the Pacific Ocean. In 1914 he was promoted by the Pope to be Vicar Apostolic of Kimberley, Western Australia, a position he held until 1922.[24] He died in Wellington, New Zealand in 1947.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_Boycott

I do not remember any pogrom in the Rep of Ireland against protestant.

Mainly during the Irish civil war, but there have been attacks ever since partition.

In July 1922 a Protestant orphanage near Clifden, County Galway, housing 58 children was burnt by the anti-treaty side. The children were subsequently transferred to England on board a British destroyer as the Provisional government was unable to rescue them.[56][57] The proselytising aspect of the Society for Irish Church Missions, which ran the institutions, had long been a source of local resentment,[58] but it had apparently ceased proselytising in the area before 1921.[59] Controversy continues to this day about the extent of intimidation of Protestants at this time. Many left Ireland during and after the Civil War. Dr Andy Bielenberg of UCC considers that about 41,000 who were not linked to the former British administration left Southern Ireland (which became the Irish Free State) between 1919 and 1923.[60] He has found that a "high-water mark" of this 41,000 left between 1921 and 1923. In all, from 1911 to 1926, the Protestant population of the 26 counties fell from some 10.4% of the total population to 7.4%.[54]
 
Strangely enough Ireland after independence never adopted a state religion.
Ummm... there is no formally Established Church, certainly. But the preamble to the Constitution reads
In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred,We, the people of Éire,Humbly acknowledging all our obligations to our Divine Lord, Jesus Christ, Who sustained our fathers through centuries of trial,Gratefully remembering their heroic and unremitting struggle to regain the rightful independence of our Nation,And seeking to promote the common good, with due observance of Prudence, Justice and Charity, so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured, true social order attained, the unity of our country restored, and concord established with other nations,Do hereby adopt, enact, and give to ourselves this Constitution.
and
Article 44.1 as originally enacted explicitly "recognised" a number of Christian denominations, such as the [Protestant] Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, as well as "the Jewish Congregations"; most controversially of all, it also recognised the "special position" of the Roman Catholic Church
emphasis added.

This is hardly a purely secular constitution.
 
emphasis added.

Article 44.1 as originally enacted explicitly "recognised" a number of Christian denominations, such as the [Protestant] Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, as well as "the Jewish Congregations"; most controversially of all, it also recognised the "special position" of the Roman Catholic Church

This is hardly a purely secular constitution.

That was removed for the constitution in 5 January 1973 in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution Act, 1972.

The Catholic church wanted to have the Roman Catholic church made the state religion. They did not get their wish.


The Catholic church did have influence, but no direct power.
 
What's the state religion?
if the FF had tried to establish a state religion for the whole country, I doubt there would be a USA... there are too many religions around for that to fly. If there is a simple absence of the first amendment, then it will be up to the states individually to decide. It's likely that some states will establish a 'state religion' but I find it doubtful that these laws would be enforced all that strongly... mainly because the states are so interdependent and people will be moving around. In time, I imagine that most such laws would be either repealed or basically considered obsolete and not enforced.
 
...but I find it doubtful that these laws would be enforced all that strongly... mainly because the states are so interdependent and people will be moving around. In time, I imagine that most such laws would be either repealed or basically considered obsolete and not enforced.

I agree that states with established Christian churches might become sufficiently tolerant of religious variability that they would not prohibit the free exercise of minority mainstream religions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc), but I could easily see the legal and tax system continue to prefer the established church (such as by collecting taxes to support it, or providing it with tax benefits as a quasi-state entity).

Also, the "freedom of religion" clauses as interpreted today offer legal protection to some widely unpopular and non-traditional religions (such as Scientology, various cults that practice animal sacrifice, Voodoo, Satanism, etc). I suspect that without the "free exercise" clause as part of the US constitution, States would be much freer to restrict the practice of nontraditional and new religions.
 
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