Followup to the 'Christian States of America' link below. Later on someone said it better than I did: the idea behind the separation of church and state is to keep the state out of religion. It is not to keep religion out of the state. Governance always happens within the context of some values - religious, secular, or other. Thinking we can have religion-less government (ie value-less goverment) is not only undesirable, but also impossible.