Dear Patrick, please go read the First Amendment. There are two religion clauses....
People of the Left apparently know only the first one: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." They apparently never heard of the second one: "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." If Congress cannot do this, then certainly the courts cannot do this -- under the constitutional separation of powers doctrine.
You not being a Man of the Left, I'm surprised you aren't aware of the second religion clause. Leftists would have it expunged, for it stands in the way of socialist secularism, which is their goal for American society. They won't be satisfied until they turn the United States into a clone of Socialist Europe.
I could tell you that the Framers believed that the dignity of the individual can be secured only by the fact that he is "under God." After all, it was the Creator who vested in man reason and free will, and endued him with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and happiness as necessary conditions giving scope to the full expression of that reason and that liberty. But I think you'd resist that assessment. In which case, you and the Framers may have a difference of opinion in the matter.
The Left Progressives know that. That's why God is "Public Enemy No. 1" in their books; they know they can't "get a free hand" with man without taking out God first. So to speak. They know that a man cannot be made the subject of, the property of the State if his first allegiance is to God. We are free men and citizens, not mere chattels of State power.
And hosepipe is exactly right: The religion clauses are about protecting religion from government, not protecting government from religion.
"The religion clauses are about protecting religion from government, not protecting government from religion."
They're about both.
The Founders were well aware of the mischief that results from mixing the two - both the state and the church suffer.
As for free exercise - trying to enshirine one's beliefs through the power of the government doesn't exactly qualify as "free exericse".
The Supreme Court, IMHO, for decades was intent on secularizing the United States to conform it to the "progressive" ideological and even perhaps judicial model of the European countries. This is of course contrary to the Constitution - and is particularly evident in their prior - and woefully confusing - interpretations of the First Amendment.
The Lemon precedent uses a "secular" test. That is not a Constitution-based test - it is bad law and needs to be fixed.
The Constitution must never again be treated as an etch a sketch by the Supremes.