Thanks very much for the reading suggestions, which I'll take you up on. While I'm doing that, you might brush up on a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions relating to the separation of "religion" (the term used by the S. Ct.) and public affairs. I'll point to a few below.+
Engel v. Vitale (1962) -- School-sponsored prayer violates 1st Amendment.
Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) -- Bible readings and other public school-sponsored religious activities (including recitation of Lord's Prayer) prohibited.+
Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) -- Bible readings and other public school-sponsored religious activities (including recitation of Lord's Prayer) prohibited.+
Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) -- Any practice sponsored w/in state-run schools, or other state-sponsored activities, must: (1) Have a secular purpose, (2) Neither advance nor inhibit religion, and (3) Not result in excessive entanglement betw govt. and religion (the 'Lemon Test').+
Lynch v. Donnelly (1984) -- Sandra Day O'Connor's "endorsement test" (a government action is invalid if it creates a perception in the mind of a reasonable observer that the government is either endorsing or disapproving of religion).+
McCreary County v. ACLU (2005) -- Ten Commandments ordered removed from Kentucky courthouses. Justice Souter for the majority: "The touchstone is the principle that the First Amendment mandates govt. neutrality between religion and religion and between religion and non-religion."
Recall that Judge Roy Moore was removed from the Alabama bench in 2003 for defying a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments display from his courthouse.+
In these and many other cases, the courts have interpreted the First Amendment (both its 'Establishment Clause' and its 'Free Expression' Clause) to require that religion not 'entangle' itself in state-sponsored functions.+
The Constitution is a 'living' document: it is what the Supreme Court says it is, at any particular moment. 'Separate but equal' was 'Constitutional' until, in Brown v. Bd of Education, the Court said it wasn't. The same w/ the place of religion in state-sponsored activities:+
as social attitudes evolve, the Court's position on some of these matters may change. Indeed, that is why conservatives are pushing so hard to confirm as many conservative judges and Justices as possible. As a liberal, I detest it but I know that that is how our system works.
