The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The “first freedom” is not the free exercise of religion - it is freedom from established religion.

Government cannot change people’s minds; it can only punish them for the content of their thoughts. As Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father, wrote in his “Notes on the State of Virginia” in the early 1780s:
“Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned: yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.”