Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government. A number of the states effectively had established churches when the First Amendment was ratified, with some remaining into the early nineteenth century.
Subsequently, Everson v. Board of Education (1947) incorporated the Establishment Clause (i.e., made it apply against the states). However, it was not until the middle to late twentieth century that the Supreme Court began to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in such a manner as to restrict the promotion of religion by the states. In the Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994), Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, concluded that “government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
I think your recollection of historical fact/intent is clouded.
I had presumed that readers here would understand that i was engaging in satirical parody, referring to how strict separationists today often react to government officials offering prayer, etc.
Not that the state can be so strictly separate, as in a democracy it will reflect the beliefs of the founders and voters to some extent, nor did it mean that the framers of the 1st Amendment meant it to outlaw any government sanction of religion at all, even on the original federal level, which they surely engaged in. Including that of the general Christian faith in a basic way, over that of other religions.
And now it increasingly sanctions the ethos of atheistic secularism.