The coveting prohibition is fundamentally opposed to the Constitution and antithetical to our criminal laws. The only influence it may have had is as an exemplar of how laws should not be written. The founders strove to protect the freedom of thought. In his 1802 letter that memorialized the “wall of separation between Church & State,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions.”54 The Supreme Court has explicitly ruled that “the First Amendment protects against the prosecution of thought crime.”55 No truly civilized society will punish for
...more
