It's a well-known gentleman's agreement in American government to keep religion out of politics. "Secularism," it's called. It's not so much that religion prohibits proper government (which it may or may not) but it's sort of like putting hammers in your cupboard. Sure, you can do that, and it likely won't cause any problems. But why?
We've been doing well heeding to secularism for some time. Almost all the time, really. As long as you don't count the Tea Party / social conservatives / Michelle Bachmann, the issue hardly ever arises because people tend to be sensible enough to keep government rational.
There is, however, one interesting set of cases regarding religion in education. Advocates believe that creationism should be taught in schools, either as a parallel to evolution or replacing it entirely. Dissidents are just the opposite (and who am I to call them dissidents for that? They're both dissidents, honestly). The reasoning is the same for both sides; evolution undermines faith while creationism undermines science. And hence, a stalemate is formed, and both armies abandon the front in an informal ceasefire.
But occasionally, a rogue battalion decides to take action, like in the Edwards vs. Aguillard case when the state of Louisiana authorized the teaching of creationism alongside evolution. The case reached the state courts where it was evaluated for whether or not it violated the First Amendment of the Constitution, and was ruled against creationism.
Of course, that wasn't enough. The losing side began to embarrass themselves further by repeating their violation with a beaglepuss on. They re-published their textbook "Creation Biology" under a different name, "Of Pandas And People," in which the text was almost exactly identical. Even more comical is that they literally went and replaced every instance of the word "creationism" with "intelligent design" to make it seem different from the former. This is clear in the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial, where it was brought up as evidence. And to make things even more comical than it already was, this quote was found in the text:
"The basic metabolic pathways (reaction chains) of nearly all organisms are the same. Is this because of descent from a common ancestor, or because only these pathways (and their variations) can sustain life? Evolutionists think the former is correct, cdesign proponentsists accept the latter view. Design proponents..."
- "Of Pandas and People," 1987
Cdesign proponentsists? Well done.
However, most cases involving religion don't end so clear-cut. Therefore, the government uses something called a Lemon test, where religious cases are tested for three conditions: whether the case is provided with a secular motive in mind, whether the case doesn't harm nor advance religion, and whether the case keeps its distance from the workings of politics. Any failure of these issues is enough to warrant the death of the issue.
In the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, for example, the court ruled Louisiana in violation of all three parts of the Lemon test. The teaching of creationism was clearly stressed with a religious motive (which violates part two as well). Also, it was a clear attempt to rally government support behind the teaching of faith.
The Lemon test has become the standard for evaluating religious cases and remains an important ideal for secularism.
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