The Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment

There seems to be an incredible amount of confusion over this very brief and clearly written statement.

If memory serves (I'll look it up afterwards), it says: "Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment of a religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

Let's see if I got that right...... Oh! So close.. Here's the cut & paste :

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
(courtesy of: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/default.aspx)

Now let's break that down, since we know the Founders labored over almost every word.
But before I begin, let us keep in mind where our Founders came from, what they were escaping, and what they were trying to prevent from happening here. They had thrown off the shackles of a centralized, unrepresentative, tyrannical monarchy. They were concerned about the government having too much power; they wanted to limit the federal government. They were not exactly concerned about the citizens having too much liberty.

Congress (This is the entity being directed here.) Not the state governors or legislatures, not city councils or county boards, not school boards or parks departments beaurocracies, not your individual schools and classrooms and playground attendants and teachers, not the president speaking during his state of the union address or an inauguration speech, nor a high school senior during a commencement address, not some kindergartner reading his bible at recess, not some cadets saying grace at mealtime, and not the president ordering that flags be flown at halfmast to honor the passing of the Pope, a man who was instumental in fighting the spread of Communism and aiding us in the Cold War! Got that?!
And what is congress to do:

shall make no law (This directs the official action of the congress in making statutory law.) It's not referring to passing resolutions to acknowledge or honor someone or something, and it's not addressing the spending of money. That increasingly primary function of congress is not affected by the prohibition on making a law...

respecting (regarding, pertaining to, concerning, in the matter of) As pertains to the proceeding action, which is ...

an establishment of (This would be the official recognition of being approved by the state, of adopting a preference for, instituting with state sponsorship, a government imprimator) With whatever benefits and priveleges that might accrue from adherence to and participation in that..

religion, (from the Oxford Dictionary: 1 the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. 2 a particular system of faith and worship.) It was primarily the second description, that particularity, that concerned our founders; the exclusivity of recognizing any particular religion in preference to others.

or prohibiting (Remember that it's a law that's not allowed by the US Congress..) that would outlaw, make illegal, disallow:

the free (Providing it doesn't harm someone else or impinge on their liberty.) Unrestrained, unharassed, unlicensed and unregulated, unthreatened, unintimidated, open and autonomous, voluntary and independent...

exercise thereof; (speech and action) Gathering together (1st Amendment freedom of assembly), worshipping in word, song, and ceremony, practice and conduct, expressing and living one's faith in words *1st Amendment freedom of speech* (proselytize, publishing, displays) and deeds (private and public).

For years now, liberals-even religious ones- have been abusing and exploiting the common misunderstanding of this component of The Bill of Rights. And doing so primarily by referring to "a wall of seperation between church and state" (from a letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut- not from the Constitution), and hoping that others will not be informed on the true nature and meaning of the "establishment clause" of the 1st Amendment to our Constitution.

Brad