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Yes, I did not mean to imply that the current doctrine is incoherent or is standing on the shaky basis (as did, for example, Roe v Wade decision, or still does most of the federal regulatory apparatus based on the unintended interpretation of interstate commerce clause). My point was simply that separation of church and state, contrary to what many people seem to believe, has not been one of the founding principle of this country, and in many states, quite the contrary.
I'd say current Establishment Clause doctrine is approximately as foundationless as RvW and other misadventures, though at least Lemon is now actually dead rather than zombie-doctrine. Properly speaking, the Establishment Clause ought to be a dead letter in practical terms, though technically existing in a legal sense. It's also one of the clauses that makes no coherent sense to apply to the states via 14th Amendment incorporation (unlike much of the rest of the Bill of Rights).
Per the original sense of the phrase and, you know, its actual words, the Establishment Clause stood for two things: first, the federal government was specifically barred from recognizing an established national church; and second, the federal government was barred from interfering--pro or con--in the decision of any state to recognize an established state church, or de-recognizing an established state church. Everything else hung on the Establishment Clause is without a legitimate foundation. Yes, the Supreme Court disagrees with me; it is wrong.
It's practically speaking a dead letter now because the state practice of recognizing a state church--though widespread at the Founding--fell out of favor over the next few decades. No state has had an established church for about 200 years, and the practice is well well outside the Overton Window everywhere in America (and properly so, sorry British people).
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