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Religious Freedom Legislation In The 2013 Virginia General Assembly, Ellis M. West

Political Science Faculty Publications

If there is any Virginia law that deserves to be called "iconic," it is Section 16 of the Virginia Bill of Rights, which combines the religious freedom provision in Virginia's first Declaration of Rights (1776) with portions of Thomas Jefferson's Statute for Religious Liberty (1785). These two documents also inspired the religion clauses of the First amendment and are world famous.

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This article consists of the following sections: Section one presents the content of the proposed amendment and explains the ways in which it is unclear, redundant, and otherwise poorly written. Section two addresses the issue of whether the …