Did churches pay taxes in 1787 after the Constitution was ratified?

Churches did pay tax after 1787, please see a book called "Constitution of the 1700s and 1800s" usually found at the library, you will find in that book that Churches did indeed pay taxes.

Not to be petty, but the Constitution wasn't ratified until 1789.

The "deck of cards" is simply that the separation of Church and State into "private" and "public" spheres is completely arbitrary. Church employees "agree" to not use their pulpits to preach political agendas, and they get tax breaks in return. Obviously this is untenable in actual practice: for example, just look at the Religious Right. In actual practice, a "minister of the gospel" (as they are called for US tax purposes) can be as political as s/he likes so long as they are patriotic ideals. Church and State only have to be separate when Church preaches against the State. That is why Jeremiah Wright has caused Obama such problems, whereas Palin's church has been by and large acceptable to most Americans.

It is directly stated in the Constitution wherein the State cannot make any laws restricting or promoting an official Church or religion. Taxing church officials is only the State's way of saying: keep your job in the "private" sphere, or else pay your public dues. Immanuel Kant laid this out in his essay, "What is Enlightenment?"

The government picks and chooses it's battles, for example an effigy of Sarah Palin was hanging from a person's home and nothing was done about it yet two men were arrested for hanging an effigy of Obama. It's sad that our government is getting bigger and more powerful each year with no end in sight.