Excellent distinction. The plethora of religious phrases and appeals to God in the founding documents as well as the myriad embellishments on and around government buildings is proof that we are not officially free from religion.
A tougher reading of the establishment clause speaks specifically to prohibiting the creation by the government of a corporate institution of religion.
The Iraqi proposed constitution differs from this only narrowly. While it makes appeals to the cultural heritage of Iraq as Muslim it does not establish an official Muslim institution in the government. The Iranian government, on the other hand, does just this. One is a democracy. The other is an oligarchy.
The interpretation of the establishment clause by recent jurisprudence ignores the founding documents and replaces them with a government scrubbed antisceptically clean of religion. It is nearly imnpossible to avoid the conclusion expressed by betty boop that contemporary government is actively pursuing a campaign to rid the culture of any vestige of public religious expression. This leads inexorably to betty's discussion of utopian government, especially as it distinguishes between government and society.
I was struck in the 90's by the continued interchangable use of the words government and society by the Clintons. They, and especially the Jr. Senator from NY, continue to this day to merge the two. She uses the words government and society interchangably. They are, in her lexicon, one entity. Clearly, then, for Hillary and her ideological cohorts, the establishment clause must, finally, rid society of the infection of religion.
These are not distinctions with no important differences. If government is society then all personal behavior is governable by law.
We are at a crossroads. Many would agree that we have gone far down the road of government intrusion into all aspects of life. When the only concern on the political left is the right of privacy as it pertains to the taking of neonatal life, we do not have far to go toward ending all vestiges of morality.
Jerry Springer, arguably the most vivid torch carrier of the political left, argues consistently that civil matters must be discussed apart from religious influence. He strikes at the heart of the matter.
Interesting choice of words, as many people do not know that until the Industrial Revolution was firmly in place, (latter first quarter of the 19th century,) the word "corporation" do not refer to business and commerce but to institutions, i.e. Harvard, Dartmouth and what we today would refer to as charities (Red Cross, ASPCA, etc.)various societies (Elks, Women's Temperance League, etc.)
Business/commerce did not so much hi-jack the word "corporation" as it just sort of slipped into it on little cat's-feet.
Excellent point.
As a non-Christian, all I ask is that I am allowed to practice my religion within the confines of civil law.
And as a moral, just, and honorable person, I do not find civil laws based on Judeo-Christian tradition particularly confining.
One hypothetical example I use is human sacrifice.
If a particular religion were outlawed in the US due to a passage in it's holy book condoning human sacrifice, that would be in violation of the First Amendment.
However, if one were to actually sacrifice a human, one would be subject to prosecution under our perfectly effective, religiously neutral civil laws against murder/manslaughter. And, one presumes, if it could be proven that the victim were willing, the charge could be reduced to assisted suicide.
While this result would offend nearly everyone in the country, it is the result that the law, as established in the Constitution by the People through their elected representatives, requires.
As my Grandfather often said, "If the law is wrong, change the law." To ignore it is anarchy.