Regardless of what the No-God set like to think, atheism is a religion. These folks believe that there is no god. Of course, you cannot prove this and so it must be based upon faith. A religion as much as Christianity or Islam. In prohibiting a reference to one god the Courts are establishing a religion in godlessness. That is just what the Constitution prohibits.
Second, the current position on references to God violates the free speach rights of persons in government and the majority of those who wish to observe religious tenets together in the public forum. American citizens have been told that there is a whole section of their lives in which they are barred from observing when they are in the public sphere. This is a pernicious view and smacks of Stalin or Hitler or any number of mean little dictators.
American citizens should be free to speak about God in any forum and in any context. The current Court has enacted a series of laws (not Constitutional positions, new laws under the guise of legal cases) which rob the public of their right to the common community expression of share values and religious views. Those in the minority must accept that the view that they have is not shared by the majority and that the majority has a "god" given right to believe as it chooses. That right includes the public expression of those views in all forums, including one created by the other expression of commonly shared values and goals - government.
Socialism has to do with ownership of property. Any public ownership of property is an instance of socialism. So government is socialism. On the state level, yes there is some socialism, just as on the federal level. Every society (any group with a common goal such as "freedom" is a society) has some amount of socialism. The only difference with the Constitutional society of the U.S. is we the people get to decide how much and where, at least we like to think "we" do.
It's Congress who cannot make any law respecting an establishment of religion, not the state schools.
In Constitutional theory, even if a state where to force Islam to be the state religion in the state public schools, the private schools could still teach what they wanted. So as long as no one is forced to go to that state school and worship that state religion and can still speak of and worship whatever they want to on their OWN property (not the Public's), no one's First Amendment rights have been violated.
Public school is meant to provide for those who don't bother or care enough to homeschool or send their kids to a private school. Public schooling is not a right, though many politicians would like you to think so.
Nobody's happy because taxpayers are forced to pay for public schools, even if they hate what is being taught. And when an individual agrees to attend a public, or better yet, the public's school, that individual is agreeing to give up his/her rights concerning anything not in agreement with the public of that state. That means if the public of that state doesn't allow for steak to be eaten on Wednesdays at school, the individual has given up the right to eat steak on Wednesdays on school property. Just like states that don't allow guns to be carried on school property. You can carry on your own property, so your 2nd Amendment is not being violated, but anywhere else you can carry is determined by the people of that state, not the federal government, not you as the individual.
Using the same logic as the 9th circuit, guns should be allowed on state public school properites everywhere.
That's socialism because you can't associate individual rights with the collective rights of the entire nation at large! The states don't have to allow guns on properties by federal mandate, but by the will of the people in that state. That means that the people of a state can vote to disallow the use of guns on public property altogether but not be in violation of a person's 2nd Am.
Or is it socialism?
Yes it is socialism. Like it or not, the Bill of Rights is Socialism just like saying that we are one nation under God is. Despite the fact that some would rather that law-abiding citizens not own guns at all, the 2nd Amendement declares that all 50 states must allow individuals to own guns. But the wording is purposefully vauge to allow for states to lay down the ultimate terms as to who gets to carry what.
That's just the way it is. Public schools can only be eliminated state by state, not by the federal government because according to Amendment 10 the f. gov. does not have the right to rule or legislate on the issue of education.
And again, before you get your blood pressure up too high when I claim that our Constitution contains socialism, just remember, government = socialism, because socialism is group ownership. What kind and how much is up to us as a one nation under the flag which is under God the Creator and giver of individual freedoms.