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Technically, the North Carolina legislature is correct. What they're basically affirming is that state governments have the right to enact an official "state religion" in their state. What the U.S. Constitution explicitly forbids is the establishment of a NATIONAL church, and I actually remember hearing a homily from a priest mentioning that it was not unusual for officially sanctioned "state churches" to be written into state constitutions in the early days of the Republic. As post #46 and others noted, they continued to have that until around 1833 or so. It would come to quite a shock to the liberal historic revisionists screaming about "separation of church and state!!"

That being said, just because state legislatures CAN still establish a "state church" for their state, should they? I would say absolutely not. They'd have to go with an organized church anyway -- if you just declared generic "Christianity" as your "official state religion", there's such a wide range of ways that Christianity is interpreted in various denominations, it would be effectively meaningless to try and legislate it as part of state government. You'd have to declare an official organized church denomination (given the demographics of North Carolina, the logical choice would be to declare the Southern Baptist Convention is the official sanctioned "State Church of North Carolina". As a Catholic, I would be highly offended by such an action giving the SBC preferential treatment in government, and the reverse would be true if say, the "Roman Catholic Church" was named the "official state religion" of Rhode Island and non-Catholics were treated like second class citizens there)

It's true we sort of unofficially have this arrangement in some states. As someone else noted, there's no "official state religion" in Utah, but unofficially, we know Mormons control the government there and it's really hard to get any high position of power in Utah without being a member of the LDS (I would also argue the laws, such as liquor laws, are directly affected by LDS teachings). That being said, the idea of the government "officially" giving its blessing to this arrangement is downright creepy to me.

Bottom line, we did away with state churches in the 1820s for a very good reason. The fact all those "progressive, secular, forward-thinking" European countries haven't do so shows what hypocrites they are. In one breathe, they bash us for being "too religious", in the other breathe, they defend the status quo allowing religion to have preferential treatment in their governments because it's become so ingrained in their culture over the centuries that they're afraid to rock the boat and upset the status quo (all those Bishops in the UK House of Lords given cushy government posts solely because of their religious status aren't about to give that up).

Even more offensive in the UK than the "official state religion", is that the government actually does what liberals falsely accused Bush of doing: enshrining discrimination in the Constitution. Catholics, for example, are specifically singled out and barred from the British throne due to a centuries old clause from the time of Henry VIII. The law doesn't even apply to other non "official state religion" citizens. A Lutheran, Buddhist, Hindu, or atheist can ascend to the throne. A Catholic cannot.

I'll fight liberals tooth and nail as they try to purge government officials from exercising their religious faith. But at the same time, I sure as hell don't want big brother telling me what religion is the right one.