The understanding of the Founding Fathers by David Barton

We have been able to chart a course that preserved the autonomy and freedom of religious bodies while avoiding any semblance of established religion. This is a “tight rope” and one we have successfully traversed.

Justice Brennan continued that praise:

The line we must draw between the permissible and the impermissible is one which accords with history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the Founding Fathers. However, not only were these self-commendations and self-serving, as already demonstrated, they also were false. Yet, this case introduced a further step in the continuing rewriting of the First Amendment when Justice William Douglas claimed that its purpose was to enhance non-religion and to promote pluralism:

One of the mandates of the First Amendment is to promote a viable, pluralistic society one which acknowledges no religion or system of belief above any other and to keep government neutral, not only between sects, but also between believers and nonbelievers. It is unquestionably true that our Founders did respect many major religions. For example, while describing a federal parade in Philadelphia, Benjamin Rush commented:

The rabbi of the Jews locked in the arms of two ministers of the Gospel was a most delightful sight. There could not have been a happier emblem. George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew congregation of Savannah showed similar warmth:

May the same wonderworking Deity, who long since delivered the Hebrews from their Egyptian oppressors and planted them in the promised land, whose Providential agency has lately been conspicuous in establishing these United States as an independent nation, still continue to water them with the dews of Heaven and to make the inhabitants of every denomination participate in the temporal and spiritual blessings of that people whose God is Jehovah.

Of the Hebrews, John Adams had declared:

I will insist that the Hebrew have done more to civilize men than any other nation. They preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty Sovereign of the Universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.