The last step. When the State actually establishes a religion.
Are you aware that the same congress that passed the first amendment also passed a law mandating and funding the teaching of the bible in schools? They were promoting a speicific religious position and their statement was that the teaching of the Bible (which included the new testament) was an important secular goal?
The European states (that the founders sougnt NOT to emulate) had all established specific religions as state religions. That was what the congress intended to protect the populace from, not some innocuous statement by a school board that Evolution may not be as true as some of its proponents suggest.
When the state starts mandating which churches are the official churches of the state and when the state takes taxpayer dollars to fund the ministers and the building of church edifices and when it becomes a requirement for citizenship or a requirment to hold public office that you belong to a certain denomination, then I will agree that the state has crossed the line.
As it stands now, the state has crossed the line on the other side and has in essence made Secular Humanism the official religion of the United States. I suspect, however, that once the Lemon Test has been eliminated, the pendulum may start swinging back to a reasonable position. I think this case may wake the Supreme Court up to the monster they created in Lemon v. Kurtzman.
The last step. When the State actually establishes a religion.
What would the step just before that step be?