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...establishment of religion" creates a wall between church and state. That hurdle, while high, may not be impossible to surmount. Over the years the Supreme Court has wrestled with the distinction between direct funding of religious institutions, which is forbidden, and indirect aid that is designed to serve a secular purpose, which may be permissible...
...because tax money could not be used to support any "institution which teaches the tenets and faith of any church." In 1971 the court strengthened that position further when it ruled in Lemon v. Kurtzman that the state could not reimburse private religious schools for the costs of teaching secular subjects. Chief Justice Warren Burger set forth a stiff tripartite test for legitimate government aid. There must be a secular purpose; the principal effect must neither advance nor limit religion; nothing done should foster "an excessive government entanglement with religion...
...obvious secular explanation for this hubbub is that America's churches are internalizing the mores of a developed society. Once the automobile, the college dorm and the Pill became almost universally available, it was inevitable that men and women would start their sexual careers earlier and build up longer and more varied resumes. It was also inevitable that the churches would adjust to the new reality. If that meant adjusting traditional interpretations of the Ten Commandments...
Like most obvious secular explanations, this one is shallow. American churches don't just passively receive ideas from the general culture. They also stimulate them. (Thomas Jefferson wrote about the "wall of separation" between church and state in a letter to a group of Baptist political allies.) If America's pews ring with debate about America's bedrooms, that is because the churches have their own reasons for grappling with the subject...
...SECULAR SOUNDS. Fearing a Fundamentalist backlash, Columbia changed the title of Nick Lowe's 1978 Jesus of Cool album to Pure Pop for Now People...