Government wouldn't be "favoring" a religion by allowing it to have a presence in the public square -- just so long as it treats every other religion in the same way.
This is what we mean by the government being barred from "establishing" a religion -- that is, giving a particular religious confession or "establishment" (if you will) preferential sanction while disfavoring or suppressing all other religious confessions. Government must be "neutral" as to religious confessions; that's not the same thing as saying it must be HOSTILE to ALL of them alike.
tpaine, you wrote, "[USSC] are attempting to be neutral. -- You disgree with their judgement, and seem to have difficulty articulating as to why." I do disagree with their judgment; for it says the only way the government can be "neutral" is by ridding the public square of all religious expression. That doesn't sound like "neutrality" to me. That sounds like open and active hostility to all forms of voluntary public religious expression -- which the second phrase of the religion clause absolutely forbids.
Just throwing this out there: When little Molly comes home to her Christian parents with stories about how she skipped her normal Bible study at public school because her new friends were doing this really cool chant around a tree and praying to the Earth Goddess, how will they feel? Do you really want children able to express themselves freely at this age in a public forum on concepts they might not quite understand fully yet? Those black cloaks looked awfully cool, and after school they were going to practice their "craft" using goat milk and spider legs! Kids are very impressionable at that age and allowing religious expression and prayer time at school might just be catastrophic when the new cool kid from Europe teaches them some new things to worship... Thoughts?