randman writes:
So that should mean Congress cannot pass laws related to religion, but in the 20th century the liberal Supreme court decided it meant that the state must suppress all religious worship and speech that occurs on any governmental function at all, and proceeded to ban school prayer, take down public displays of the baby Jesus around Christmas time, etc,....
I find that to be a rather biased view. Lets lean it over a bit the other way:
In the 20th century the Supreme Court finally recognized that the religious entities were striving to force religion into our government, schools, and every place they possibly could. They woke up and started to boot religion out of our schools (prayer in the classroom), courtrooms (toss out the ten commandments) and remove overt Christian symbols from government (baby Jesus is as religious as it gets).
Do you know of any government that is or was controlled by religious leaders that did not oppress people of other religions, and eventually of their own religion? Christianity has a monstrous history of oppression.
That is why we have the first amendment: To keep our government secular. The way the founding fathers wanted it.