Religion

I cited multiple cases and linked them, just like, ya know, the Supreme Court did.

Taxation is control is an overarching legal principle in the context of the reason why taxing churches violates the free expression clause. It's literally the only reason that taxation of churches would be unconstitutional. There is no other reason. Any other reason would be simply a policy choice. So talking about it as if "well it's fine for some cases" but not for others...lmao.

Yes, the government controls me when I pay taxes because if I don't pay taxes, I go to jail. I also am forced to give my money to all sorts of things, even things I don't like. Now, I am fine with that for the most part because that's how a society functions. We give money collectively, and then, ideally, good stuff happens...and if bad stuff happens, we vote folks out and put in folks who spend the money better. That's the theory anyways.

Exemptions can "long predate" (you cited 1777 as the earliest date so not sure it's all that "long&quot , and the fact that preemptions existed before may have informed what came later, although I'm fairly certain the Founders weren't thinking of Constantine. But that does not erase that the reason NOW since the first amendment was incorporated is that it's unconstitutional because it violates it. I didn't create that concept from wholecloth. I didn't make it up. It isn't some fringe con law theory developed in an evil lab. It's a very established, clear and pretty unchallenged principle. If you want to advocate for it to be changed, feel free to bring suit and make the argument. I'm pretty sure of the outcome though.

A whole host of concepts in the BOR came from something before. They didn't create anything new, they applied a lot of things in a new way for sure, but they built on what came before. But we don't then pretend that TODAY this means it's not really a constitutional issue when we examine one of those amendments because someone came up with some version of the idea beforehand and cite to that instead.