[Justice Sandra Day] O'Connor:
" ... sends a message to non-adherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community."
A perfect example of a statement issued by a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, which is not lawful, it is not Constitutional; you do not have to be a judge to know this; furthermore, her statement is not enforceable.
The Constitution does not give an absolute right to define what is, nor what was, to a judge; and no Amendment to the Constitution has yet done that dishonor.
Now, to the Justice's statement.
The First Amendment was written by people who knew how to read and write, they worked their documents over and over, to get them close to their original intent.
Why would they do that?
Because the very term, word, expression: "law" meant to them, fixed, adherence, firm, stability.
For example, would that your heirs decide that because you are a "dead old white guy," that original intent of your last will and testament which you labored over to express your perpetual wishes ... be all diluted to meaning - less - ness by your heirs' decision to make of your words what meets their demands, "right now?!"
You would be aghast (but perhaps not, knowing your heirs) to have your meaning spun otherwise.
What was the point of your labors, your sculpting the words to make them a memorial for the ages, when the "contemporary interpretations" of law is that the purpose of writing law, is to put down on paper mere words to be scrabbled into what pleases competiting lawyers in the ring.
Why bother with sentence structure if original intent does not matter; why not just list words?
Rediculous, such a game; no value to law is in it.
For law to have value, it must be respected for its original intent; same for your last will and testatment.
The original intent of the Framers and Founding Fathers, was not that of Thomas Jefferson's 1806 letter alone, wherein he mentioned the "separation of church and state;" the other old dead white guys' combined efforts are vastly more important --- they wrote it, and they approved it for transmission to the new states (which, by the way, had not yet totalled thirteen) ... with the blessing of George Washington.
The original intent of the Framers and Founding Fathers had nothing to do with "sending a message" to non-believers in man's Creator, that they were members, let alone guaranteed members, of the American political community. The Framers and Founders did not do this, "sending a message," because no such guarantee was required.
In fact, for all who bother to notice, in the body of the Constitution (that's the part prior to reading the Bill of Rights), is the matter of there not being a religious test for government office:
Article VI, Section III:" ... no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
That's right; the Justice has her history incorrect and has improperly applied her solution upon the First Amendment where her solution has no standing.
Now some legal scholar may come along and try to be very particular about that Section and its application, but I challenge their attempt to make logical their particulars in the face of their manifest transgressions of the Framers and Founders original intent as well as what they said in their sculpted works, The First Ten Amendments.
Such "legal experts' would have you peer narrowly where they want and wide where they want, and not challenge their corrupt "interpretations" which they dub "living" --- they sound like fascists who'll tell you that "Work makes you free" as they march you off into a controlled state.
Our individual Liberty and our individual responsibility, our duty, require us to exert our authority as the people, to bear down upon judges, lawyers, and "legal experts" who mock the sincere efforts of George Washington and our forebears.
You cannot tell me honestly, that he was a man who believed in a government by judiciary. Thomas Jefferson was his Secretary of State, and he also did not believe in a government by judiciary; same is true for Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury; and true for Knox, Secretary of War --- all men determined to form a new federal government responsive to laws made by the duly elected representatives of the people, sitting as the Congress.
Jefferson was a States Rights advocate, who thereby sought the strength of the democratic-republic structure against what he and his fellow "Republicans" feared could become a purely national American government, sans the individual States.
Yet among the "Republicans" were social democrats, then inflamed by the French Revolution, and they were inclined to point out Thomas Jefferson as their model --- but his conceptions for protection of the people against government, by way of the democratic-republic bode well against a government by judiciary, and against the absolute committee of the French Revolutionaries massacring French citizenry for their political incorrectness.
The French model of social "democracy" headed by supreme committees of social judges was not what Jefferson would promote as a check against tyranny.
And checks against government are the purpose of The First Ten Amendments to the Constitution.
The "test" to apply, is not Justice O'Connor's misconception.
Instead, the test is:
Was the protection from government, which is notably protection affirmed by the very First Amendment, denied the petitioner because Congress made a law respecting an establishment of religion, or Congress made a law prohibiting the free exercise of religion?