P-Marlowe: The last step. When the State actually establishes a religion.
ml1954: What would the step just before that step be?
P-Marlowe: Constitutional.
The step that is okay before the step that is not is 'Constitutional'? What does that mean? Please be more explicit.
When the state's actions infringe upon the free exercise of religion of the citizens, then the state is crossing the line into an establishement of religion.
In this particular case the teaching of evolution is mandated despite the fact that many people have a religious opposition to that curriculum. I would say that forcing a student to learn something that conflicts with his religious beliefs is far closer to an establishment of religion than merely advising everyone that the theory that they are required to learn which conflicts with their deeply held religious beliefs may not be factual and that there are alternative theories.
In this case the Dover students who do not believe in evolution are being forced to reject their deeply held religious views or leave the school. That looks pretty close to an infringment of the free exercise of their religion. They are forced to go to school (by compulsory deducation laws) and then forced to confront their deeply held religious views with a theory that conflicts with those beliefs and then they are prohibited (by this court) from challenging it or calling that theory into question.
The Dover school district did nothing more than accomodate those students by reassuring them that the theory in question is not set in stone and that there are alternative theories.
Amazingly, it is the secular humanists who are attempting to force their religious views on the fundamentalists. What the Dover school district did was reasonable and did not in any way begin to approach an establishment of religion. What the court has done here, however, looks suspiciously like an infringment of the free exercise clause.