If you argue otherwise, you'll have a good portion of the devout fundamentalists who know their Bibles as well as anyone else who knows his religious history against you. As much as you've probably suspected already, the real problem is a culture war against all of us. It's not just Christianity these culture guerrillas aim to destroy! But it's important to know the enemy; the ACLU is just a symptom of the problem. Dividing people into "believers" and "unbelievers" is completely ineffective in dealing with the problem. It's a simplistic approach that makes the leaders of the attack laugh in our faces.
The true enemy is cultural relativism, moral equivocation, and post-structuralism. It is being taught in our schools, it's in our news and entertainment media, and it's the leading platform of our philosophers. It's even in churches. It's an all out attack on the truth. The Constitution can't help with this war because it requires people to think rationally. Imparting Christian dogma into government won't solve the problem, because it will return us to the religious civil wars of Europe's sordid past.
The Founding Fathers knew that. They struck a good balance between atheism and theocracy with the Constitution as it is written.
In an interesting inverse to the Christian right's demand that we abandon reason and logical persuasion for their own politically motivated religious reasons, the left neutralizes language altogether by twisting it around with cultural relativism and deconstruction. This is why I see both sides of that battle when it becomes legal as being two sides of a common threat to the republic. They both demand that we cease to be rational beings, one way or another.
Religious persecution is important to obstruct, but I've heard Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell exaggerate its prevalence far too many times to give them any credibility. Sure it happens, but it's more rare than they would have us believe. That suits them fine, though. They make buckets of money every time they convince the faithful that a Christian is being thrown to the lions. In the case that started this thread, I would be a lot more comfortable with the whole notion of "faith based initiative" if it didn't fund muslims and wiccans. But then how do you argue for religious balance in federal funding? What a novel idea: let's let churches fund their own activities!
Without rational dependence on language, a democratic republic cannot stand. Don't be part of the problem, be part of the solution. Religion can't be restored by government. It has to come from the people themselves.
A nice long post. Unfortunately, I don't think it addresses the question at hand, although it does a fine jig all around it. From our short dialogue, I think it safe to say we mostly agree on this issue. However, I think we view it a bit differently. I am a Christian. I believe each person may worship God, or not, in whatever way they choose. I think the laws of the land should uphold this basic human right. I think they do.
Do I think the law should eliminate religion from the public square? No. We are engage in a war between believers and unbelievers. The unbelievers use the tools of 'cultural relativism, moral equivocation, and post-structuralism' to good advantage. But many do not buy into the message. I'm one of them.