Quite right. Indeed that is one of Everson's flaws. TJ's infamous wall of separation blown way out of proportion. I hurt my case by doing something similar. Our law is the Constitution. But if we know for certain what a particular word meant in that Constitution, then that meaning is important. Do you agree?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.
Why did SCOTUS expand the definition of the word establishment, causing us all this trouble? I don't buy for a minute that if SCOTUS decided very few Establishment cases up to 1947, then the territory is up for grabs for any runaway activist court who wants to fill the vacuum. What was the extra problem they were trying to solve? Had the modern age changed the equation somehow?
My thesis is that Everson was a terrible mistake and should be rolled back. This aligns with what a legitimate Constitutional movement of originalists is trying to do. What I have been saying should be right at home on this Conservative forum.
The 56 years between then and now make it familiar, but not right.
Yes, but I don't think we will ever know that for certain. The offical action of Madison in vetoing the gift of land to a church is one indication. Even better is the record of deliberations of the Constitutional Convention. But ultimately the text and the accumulated interpretations of it are our guide.
Why did SCOTUS expand the definition of the word establishment, causing us all this trouble?
What proof do you have that they did?
What was the extra problem they were trying to solve? Had the modern age changed the equation somehow?
They were addressing a case that came before them. The State of New Jersey was providing free busing for school children at all schools: public, private, and parochial. Somebody, perhaps an anti-Catholic, took exception to the state paying for transporting kids to a religious school and sued the state to have it stopped. SCOTUS decided that providing busing for all children regardless of type of school did not represent an establishment of religion because it did not meet any of the elements in the paragraph we've been discussing. Do you disagree with their decision or only with the logic behind it?
Later courts found the Everson standard to be perhaps too broad and Warren Burger formulated the Lemon Test (1971), which is the current primary standard. The Marsh decision (1983) states an exception which allows for traditional and historical "ceremonial recognitions of God." While Everson was precedent setting, it is no longer the operative interpretation of the Establishment Clause.
The major lasting effect of Everson was not a redefinition of the word "establishment," it was the clear extension of the 1st Amendment to the states, via the 14th Amendment. Even Clarence Thomas, a soldly conservative justice accepts that interpration, with reservations.
Whatever the textual and historical merits of incorporating the Establishment Clause, I can accept that the Fourteenth Amendment protects religious liberty rights.The 14h Amendment is interpeted as extending all the Bill of Rights to the states. If you don't think that the 1st Amendment should apply to states then what about the others? Should states be permitted to search and sieze your property without due process? Should they be able to compel self-incrimination? Should they be able to regulate arms? (Oops, stupid question.)
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002)
I don't know what you mean by a "legitimate Constitutional movement of originalists." You probably mean a "legitimate movement of Constitutional originalists." Even so, I don't see any proof that the Founders would have interpreted the Establishment Clause, as modified by the Fourteenth Amendment, any differently then Judge Thompson did.