[Old Teufel Hunden]

"you will perhaps become familiar with the phrase if you read the Federalist Papers or the writings of our founders. Please avail yourself of the opportunity to learn what our founders meant by the phrase."

What most of them consistently said is encapsulated in the first Amendment. Notice how the first starts off with "Congress shall make no law". Now the three things it forbids Congress from doing is:

1. Establishing an official religion
2. Prohibiting free exercise of your religion
3. Taking away your right to speak freely of your religion

Please show me where a community deciding to have a manger at the municipal building violates any of the above three principles? Show me a writing in the Federalist papers or the founders that expands upon the above three principles that would prohibit a public display of religious symbols? I don't know of any. You refer me to the Federalist papers, I refer you back to them and show me where they speak against a community allowing a public display of religious symbols.

"If you were going to court as a non-Muslim, testifying against a Muslim, and the Court had a display of the Quran on the front of it"

You do realize that since the founding of this country, courts have had the ten commandments displayed in the courtroom? We already bend over backwards for other cultures and societies. But you have to face one simple fact, this country was founded upon the religious principles of Christianity. From John Winthrop forward. The majority of our founders were religious and mostly Christian. They did not want to get "the religious" out of our daily lives. They just did not want to force everyone to have to worship the same way (as in England). You are falling into the same trap as those of the left and the ACLU by getting "freedom of religion" mixed up. The goal was not to take religion out of our public lives, it was to take the force of government out of religion.

[allmendream]

Seems you think we seem to already have an unofficial official religion. I respectfully disagree. Previously your criteria seemed to be majority; now precidence is to be given via foundational ideologies and the respective religious influences?

Can you show me where amid the limited and enumerated functions our founders envisioned for the government is the recognition and observance of religious festivals and holidays?

I submit to you that it is not amid the stated functions of a truly limited government with enumerated powers.

I suggest that there is no compelling reason or a ligitimate government function to recognition of the majority religion.

What function does it serve those already amid the religious majority to have the State echo their religious sentiments? Is their faith so weak that it must be propped up by the secular powers that be? What function does it serve religious minorities to have the secular powers that be echo the majority religious sentiment? Do they need government reminding them that they are not among the faithful?

We are not a people lacking in religious sentiment or observances; and on the whole, those out of City Hall are much more likely to be the sort of ‘praying loud in public’ that should be condemned than those whose origins is not from secular, public and political sources.