“That’s only at the Federal level, since it is a Federal ammendment to the federal constitution.
There were state churches if I remember ... I’m not that old!”
You are correct, up until Amendment XIV. In 1833, SCOTUS ruled in Barron vs. Baltimore that the Bill of Rights did not apply at the state level. It wasn’t until the Incorporation Doctrine that the BOR finally applied at the state level.
Cases continued throughout the late 1800’s in favor of the BOR at the state level. That doctrine was officially cemented in the famous case, Adamson v. California, in 1947 and continued throughout the 60’s. The precedence is clear, and understandable, that these unaliable rights should also apply at the state levels via Amendment XIV.
If the establishment clause protects rights then it protects the right of the people of the various states to decide the issue of establishment for themselves because it actually protected state establishments from federal interference. Liberals interpreted the incorporated establishment clause to forbid the very thing it was meant to protect!