Amendment I

Breaking down the Amendments, part one.
The First Amendment, the one most bastardized by Americans and used to defend everything from pedophiles to hating the faithful, is more tricky than the Second Amendment when it comes to 'interpretations'. Here it is:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Let's look into the text, shall we, because the framers of the Constitution loved the use of commas. In fact, they use commas in nearly every single sentence they wrote. This is difficult for definition because the comma itself tries to establish context. Here we go...

First part: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

OK, seems easy enough, Congress can't legislate a religion to the Citizens. Essentially they can't make a law saying "Everyone shall be Christian", or Muslim, or Buddhist, etc. They also can't say we all are "Atheist" nor "Agnostic". No law.

Second part: or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

Ah, thanks, so we can have faith and religion in the United States and no law may tell us we can't.

Third part: or abridging the freedom of speech

This is the one we Americans love to quote "Freedom of Speech", yup, sure enough we have it..which allows me to write something like this without getting arrested, though I'm sure I'm on a "list".

Fourth part: or of the press;

This allows our now useless media outlets to flourish in a 24 hours opinion column.

Fifth part: or the right of the people peaceably to assemble

Wow, man they shoved a lot in the First seems like they didn't see the other nine coming at all. So this part says you can "assemble" which most Americans have used to "protest" a nice negative term on an otherwise useful piece of founding parchment.

Sixth part: and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

This part has seriously been all but abandoned by America. Well, not the petitioning but any attempt and redress of grievance. Lets define the word "redress" - to remedy or set right; when is the last time that occurred?

This concludes the breakdown of the Amendment and shows how much this single complex sentence contains.

The next time you hear or read about some Atheist group using the "first amendment" as their rationale to not allow prayer in a public school, ask yourself this "where is that written?". The answer, no where. The Right simply says the US Congress can not legislate a religion, not that the State can't participate in one. Keep thinking people, keep thinking.