Interesting. There was recently a federal case - can't recall the name or the circuit, I think it was a circuit case - in which the court said that the "wall of separation" is a misnomer and there was never such an intent in the Constitution. It was a "Ten Commandments in a public building" case which the ACLU lost, if I recall correctly.
The problem, in my "humble" opinion, is that the people are ignorant of both the Constitution and how their government is supposed to work.
http://tinyurl.com/npt6t
http://tinyurl.com/hehr8
As a consequence of widespread constitutional and government ignorance, anti-religious expression judges are walking all over our religious freedoms. After all, when was the last time that you heard of a judge who took the 10th A. powers of the states to address religious issues into consideration before booting Intelligent Design out of the school building? Indeed, judges who want to protect our religious freedoms may be unaware that Jefferson acknowledged the 10th A. protected powers of the states to address religious issues.
The bottom line is that the people need to get a grip on what the honest interpretations of the 1st, 10th and 14th Amendments actually say about our religious freedoms. Then, when the people wise up to the fact that they are essentially prisoners of conscious to the bogus interpretation of the establishment clause by a renegade, anti-religious expression Supreme Court, they will hopefully heed Lincoln's advice for dealing with crooked judges:
"We the People are the rightful master of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." --Abraham Lincoln, Political debates between Lincoln and Douglas, 1858.
That was ACLU v Mercer in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. And yes the ACLU lost - big time. In addition, in its decision the Court derided and insulted the ACLU probably as much as legally ethical (unlike that Moonbat in Mich). It was a major smackdown. Anyway here is the salient part of the decision.
The ACLU’s argument contains three fundamental flaws. First, the ACLU makes repeated reference to “the separation of church and state.” This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.IMO this was s a HUGH victory for the good guys. The problem was that this decision came down right before Christmas on Dec 20, 2005. And at that time 'we' were all caught up in the 'War on Christmas', so this got little attention.
ACLU v Mercer County, Ky (NOTE its PDF)
And excuse the interruption :-)