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On one side of the debate are those who maintain that the Founders did not intend to build a “wall” between church and state or even to forbid federal support for religious institutions, but that they only wanted to prevent the government from privileging one Christian denomination over the others.

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“It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

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"For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”

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In 1790, George Washington wrote a letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, that said the following: “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.

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As a consequence of the statute’s passage, the Church of England was indeed disestablished, or detached, from Virginia.

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Jefferson and Madison shared similar convictions. As Jefferson wrote in “Notes on the State of Virginia” in 1781, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say that there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

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By the time the Act for Establishing Religious Freedom was adopted, religious dissenters in Virginia—primarily Baptists, who were joined by Presbyterians and Methodists—had been petitioning for religious liberty for a decade.

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Rather, the rulers and legislators, all of them “fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others,” imposing on people their own opinions, which they consider the only ones that are right and true.

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"The statement, which was introduced into the Virginia General Assembly in 1779 and passed into law in 1786, is one of just three accomplishments that Jefferson asked be included in his epitaph."

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“There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion.”

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CONTEXT SENTENCE where the word was used in the article.

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The writing of the Establishment Clause was important to members of minority religions who were concerned that the federal government might establish a state religion.

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As a consequence of the statute’s passage, the Church of England was indeed disestablished, or detached, from Virginia.