Editing Jefferson - Washington Post

Mr. Carrico, a state trooper-turned-Republican-delegate from Grayson County in southwestern Virginia, says he believes Christians are being silenced and persecuted. "America was founded on Christian beliefs," he proclaims. "Christianity is the majority faith in this country, and yet because the minority has said, 'I'm offended,' we are being told to keep silent." Yet Mr. Carrico's "solution," an amendment to a passage of the Virginia Constitution adapted in part from Thomas Jefferson's famous Statute of Religious Freedom, is unnecessary, vague and disingenuous as to its real intent. If incorporated into the Constitution, it would defile the language of Jefferson and embolden religious activists for whom the Founding Fathers' doctrine of separation of church and state is a nuisance.

As the Virginia Historical Society states, the "Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom is both a statement about freedom of conscience and the principle of separation of church and state." The second of its three paragraphs says (in full)

II. Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.