Good call by the judge about the "separation of church and state" issue. My blood boils every time I hear that phrase because I know that most Americans ASSUME it is in the Constitution. It is mentioned in the Federalist Papers and some personal writings of the founding fathers, but NOT the Constitution.
Just . . . WOW!
I knew someone who thought the ACLU was an agency of the U.S. government. :-p
It was in the Soviet Constitution. Many militant secularists of today a few decades ago were Communist sympathizers and as such they picked this idea from the wrong constitution. Since they never paid close attention to the American one, no wonder they got confused.
"Let us leave prayer to be prompted by the devotion of the heart, and not the bidding of the State."
Source of Information: Representative Gulian Verplanck of New York on the floor of the U. S. House of Representatives in 1832 objecting to the idea of Congress asking President Andrew Jackson to issue a Religious Proclamation recommending prayer and fasting.
The House took the advice and refused to ask the President to recommend prayer and fasting. Of course, Jackson had previously made it publicly known that any member of Congress that brought him such a foolish request would get his sorry butt kicked back to the Temple of Satan where the idea sprang from.
The meaning of the establishment clause is, “We Don't Need No Stinkin Advice From The Government On Religion.”