JAMES MADISON, MICHAEL MEDVED AND THE FUNDIES

Medved has been pushing the false claim that James Madison favored the mixing of Church and State but this article in the Smithsonian by Kenneth C. Davis offers proof that Madison thought no such thing.  In particular, Davis refers to Madison's Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785) in which I found this tidbit:

Because the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.