In practice, the prohibition on laws "respecting an establishment of religion" certainly does seem to mean laws that would favor one religion over another, rather than laws that provide benefit to religion in general, because (for instance) religious organizations are tax-exempt. Obviously that's a law "respecting an establishment of religion" if "establishment of religion" is taken to mean religion in general.
Where does the line get drawn, though? In your view, how many people does a law have to potentially affect in order to be properly handled at the federal level rather than the state level? This seems fairly arbitrary as well; why do you think that federal government should handle laws that affect lots of people while the states should handle laws that affect fewer people? What's the rationale here? Why shouldn't federal laws be passed that would affect a comparatively small number of people scattered across the entire country?
For the record, there are ~1.3 million abortions each year in the US and ~4 million children born each year in the US.
Bookmarks