"The Constitution is now where near so specific about religion that it forbids passing laws that I support as a result of my religious beliefs, Amos."

Actually, that is exactly what it prohibits. And the Supreme Court, in it's decisions down through the years, has broadly and narrowly interpreted the 1st, but it has never waivered on the use of religion, even the religion and religious based traditions of the country's founders and framers of the constitution.

The problems that we are now facing regarding the intepretation of religion in public life stems from the fact that conservative Protestantism has been the default dominant religion in the US since it's inception. That is why we see "In God We Trust" and swearing religious oaths on bibles (no longer done in courts of law, BTW, even though it was once a long standing tradition) unless you are being sworn in to public office. So there are vestiges of Protestant religion all over the public sphere that need to be taken out the public sphere.

However, as we saw in Alabama, the opposite is actually happening, because of the fundamentalist Christian domination of mainstream politics right now, which conservative Catholics, conservative Jews, conservative "traditionalists" (which can include anybody from people like Strick, who say they wish to uphold "tradition" to Native Americans who practice a contemporary form of their traditional religion, to pagans and wiccans), conservative Buddhists, conservative Muslims, conservative Hindus, and people who are just plain conservative, support. They support most of the fundamentalist Christian political agenda, because they support conservative values.

But their time will soon, thankfully, be in the past.

I actually put the First Amendment in a post up the line there.

Here again is the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Strick said "It prohibits establishing a religion and nothing more."

That is simply not true. There have been many cases the Supreme Court has weighed in on. The constitution is a living document, open to interpretation (that is why we have the Supreme Court) and changes in our society over time. That is it's value today. Eventually, it too will become obsolete, and will be replaced with something that serves the nation better, or the nation will change and no longer appear as it does today.