The greatest restraints are put upon church/state relationships in #3, where "religion" is taken as an abstract concept of "religion-in-general', and "establishment" is taken in the participial sense, but expanded in meaning to include fostering, promoting, nurturing, or equivalent terms.  The application of this interpretation can be seen in Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), where the New York State Board of Regents (a state agency possessing quasi-legislative powers) required a non-sectarian prayer before school.  Although not actually ratifying or ordaining a specific sect, it was at least fostering or promoting 'religion-in-general.'  A broad survey of Supreme Court decisions reveals that interpretation #3 has been the unspoken presumption of virtually all church and state decisions of the last fifty years.

The next most restrictive interpretation is #2, which defines "establishment" as an institution, and "religion" as a specific sect or society.  It is similar to the Lemon test with notable differences.  The Lemon test today is directed at religion-in-general entangled with government-in-general.  Interpretation #2 would only prohibit legislative activity, and only when it is directed at, unduly affecting, or entangled with a specific sect or society.  And, as already observed, the Lemon test employs a disjunctive "or."  The term "respecting" found in the First Amendment allows, but does not require this grammatical nuance.

Interpretation #1 would be most permissive in allowing church/state entanglement.  It would permit legislation affecting religion in general (e.g., the mandated non-sectarian school prayer of Engle v. Vitale), and would even permit legislation directed at a particular sect, so long as the government was not actually founding a new sect, nor ratifying an existing sect as the official state religion.  An example of this interpretation can be seen in Jefferson's sending Roman Catholic missionaries to the Indians.  Obviously even the most ardent supporter of such "benign" entanglement would have to admit that, if the Roman Catholic church were to systematically receive substantial support from the government for such missionary ventures over a long period of time to the exclusion of other religions, it would be a de-facto "establishing" of a religion.  Interpretation #1 would allow liberal church/state entanglement, but it would obviously still have limits.  The question is one of degree.

Finally, from the words of Supreme Court Joseph Story, (appointed by James Madison, the Chief Architect of the Constitution), we see with unmistakable clarity that he understood the term religion to mean sects and denominations, not religion (or even Christianity) in general.

We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity (which none could hold in more reverence, than the framers of the Constitution)."^[1]

It is important to look not only at Story's personal interpretation, but to his reasoning.  Given the pervasive Christian environment of the Colonies, and the fact that the "general, if not the universal, sentiment in America was, that Christianity ought to receive encouragement from the State," one is indeed compelled by logic to agree that "[a]n attempt to level all religions, and make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation."

This is also consistent with the later statement by the Supreme Court in Updegraph v. The Commonwealth, which the Court then later quoted in The Church of the Holy Trinity:  "Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law. . . not Christianity with an established church. . . but Christianity with liberty of conscience to all men."^[2]

CONCLUSION

We conclude therefore that first and foremost the First Amendment is a prohibition against Congress making laws.  Of the many words and phrases used in the First Amendment, this is the only one that can be asserted without controversy.  If one does accept an "incorporation" interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the meaning and application are still limited by the meaning of the words actually used in the First Amendment.  It becomes a prohibition against state legislation.

The word "respecting" is somewhat more complex.  To respect something is to divert attention to it.  Therefore, the best interpretation of "respecting" is probably purpose the first prong of the Lemon test.  However, it does not appear grammatically impossible for the word "respecting" to incorporate all three nuances of the Lemon test.  (Our analysis of the history of the First Amendment may, however, further serve to suggest that only the first point of the Lemon test, purpose, is best served by the term "respecting.")  Nevertheless, this appears to be at least legitimate ground for controversy.

The phrase "an establishment" is best interpreted substantially as "an institution."  This would include both laws in any way interfering with specific religious establishments (overlapping somewhat with the free exercise clause), and, as a subset, laws making one particular sect or denomination a national religion.  And the term "religion" was clearly best served by understanding it in the sectarian or denominational sense, not the "religion-in-general" sense.  Accordingly, notwithstanding the fact that the Louisiana legislature did pass the Balanced Treatment Act, (bringing it under the scrutiny of the First Amendment), the only way it could have violated the First Amendment was if  1)  one ignored the various drafts equating "religion" to sectarianism, and adopted a "religion-in-general" view of the word "religion,"  2)  one adopted a participial construction is ascribed to the word "establishment,"  and 3)  one adhered to the Everson substitution of terms, equating "establishing" to such broad terms as "promoting" or "participating" in religion-in-general.  Because the first two interpretations do violence to the grammar and history of the First Amendment, and the third does violence to the text of the First Amendment itself, it can safely be said that the Court erred in its decision in Edwards.

But, even if one were to concede these three points, the Court's decision also assumes that creation-science is so utterly bereft of intellectual merit that it is little more than an exposition of the book of Genesis by fundamentalist preachers in science classes.  Finally, having made this assumption, the court assumes that the Act's purpose was the promotion of such fundamentalist ideology, rather than, as the Act itself claimed, to offer a "balanced treatment" to accommodate the diverse sensibilities and ideologies of Louisianans.  The question of the Act's purpose was so eloquently defended by Justice Scalia's dissent that this paper could add little to what he said.  We shall, however, consider whether creation-science is so bereft of intellectual merit that it can be dismissed intuitively as religion, rather than science.  We shall see that the balanced treatment Act was not "establishing" a religion, nor was it directed at a religion.  It was directed at science.