You posted: There is no separation of "religion and government" other than the government can't establish a state run church/denomination.
Reply:
You seem unfamiliar with the First Amendment. It states: "Congress shall make no law regarding the establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
The Constititution also states in the original, in Art VI, "there shall be no religious test for public office".
Note carefully: the words are "religion" and "religious". It is not about a church establishment. It is about religion. The courts have, for 200 years, understood this in its original intent--there shall be no establishment of religion. And Deism and other non-religion counts. The Constitution never mentions "churches". The economically non-productive clergy were often excluded from participating in town councils in colonial times as being parasitic and having nothing of value in practical affairs of men. (Matters of women were rarely considered in those times.)
Thomas you should read Rehnquits dissent in Wallace v Jaffree for a primer on estabishment clause jurisprudence and original intent. You're lost in a lost world.
Note also (pby) that the establishment and free exercise clauses share the noun "religion". The word is only used in the establishment clause and simply referred to in the free exercise clause: "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".
Therefore if you construct the establishment clause such that "religion" must be understood to mean something like "state religion" or "national religion," then the government would only be prevented from prohibiting the free exercise of "state religion" or of a national church. But this construction is (one would hope) obviously absurd.