Bill D! I can't believe you misquoted the Constitution! You were just testing me, right? To see if I really knew? "Congress shall make no law respecting AN establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof:..." Emphasis mine. "an" is an all important little word in there, don't you think?

When you state that the extreme positions were the norm then I have to argue that those same positions were not extreme. They were, as you say, the "norm". It is only from a subsequent historical perch that one may cast a position as extreme only because the historic point of view has evolved or shifted. It only appears extreme because of current popular views.

Something that is extreme stands out in its own time, wouldn't you agree?

I was not arguing that laws SHOULD be based on religion or even religious ideals. I was merely stating that it is world history that demonstrates that for the great bulk of history religion and the state were one and that religious laws WERE the state's laws. That's all. Not all countries or governmental institutions had the same religion, the same laws, dealt with the same problems or what have you. But virtually every instance appealed to divine authority to bolster and substantiate whatever code they were attempting to enforce.

Yes we are enlightened, aren't we? We DO see the common sense of most of our basic laws. It only took six thousand, plus years to arrive at our enlightenment. I'm also certain that throughout history most of the folk understood the intent of the general laws was to establish some system of justice, of fair(er) play. And there undoubtedly there were always a few scumbags around to try and subvert the same for their own advantage. That's human nature.

And lastly I agree with you that the proposed legislation looks pretty harebrained. With the First Amendment in place it is wholly unneeded.