Of course you're right about this, highball. But that is not what the language of the second clause envisions. It means non-coercive exercise, exercise respectful of other religious faiths, and of people who hold to no religious tradition, without the government endorsing one faith as against all the others (that's what the establishment clause means).
Precisely. But that's simply not what we have in this case.
In this case, we have a school board who wanted to use the power of their office to enshrine their own faith in science classes to the exclusion of all others. Then they lied about it under oath, and they lied about the money trail.
It is not "non-coercive exercise" if the teachers are forced to endorse it to their students. It is not "respectful of other religious faiths" if their faith is the only one given such endorsement.
I have never once argued for the elimination of faith from all public life. But what these wackos did was flagrantly un-Constitutional (or they wouldn't have tried so desperately to hide it), and now the poor people of their district are stuck with massive legal bills resulting from such "breathtaking inanity".
Your analysis is, I think, drawn from a faulty initial premise, highball -- that ID is a Trojan Horse for a species of Christian creationism. I just don't see it that way; and so I respectfully disagree with your characterization.
I see , SOoo the locals are too stupid to determine what their own Kids should learn?... Since they actually hold the federal giverment as secondary to the well being of thier own children.. and that they alone are qualified to determine what their own kids learn.?...
The federal money trail Slimes all it touches, ALWAYS, in every case.. My dear Highball you are a SOCIALIST, or maybe worse.. Giverment "IS" the problem, not the solution, in every case.. Except in National Security and even then National Security is Slimed to the extent democrats are involved.. and federal employees are used..