For a most interesting read, I would refer my Lizard friends to one of the more salient, modern SCOTUS rulings on the issue of separation of religion and state:

supreme.justia.com

Writing for the majority, Justice Souter opined:

“A proper respect for both the Free Exercise and the Establishment Clauses compels the State to pursue a course of ‘neutrality’ toward religion,” Committee for Public Ed. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U. S. 756, 792-793 (1973), favoring neither one religion over others nor religious adherents collectively over nonadherents…”

In an interesting dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia wrote:
“JUSTICE SOUTER’S steamrolling of the difference between civil authority held by a church and civil authority held by members of a church is breathtaking. To accept it, one must believe that large portions of the civil authority exercised during most of our history were unconstitutional, and that much more of it than merely the Kiryas Joel school district is unconstitutional today. The history of the populating of North America is in no small measure the story of groups of people sharing a common religious and cultural heritage striking out to form their own communities. See, e. g., W. Sweet, The Story of Religion in America 9 (1950). It is preposterous to suggest that the civil institutions of these communities, separate from their churches, were constitutionally suspect. And if they were, surely JUSTICE SOUTER cannot mean that the inclusion of one or two nonbelievers in the community would have been enough to eliminate the constitutional vice. If the conferral of governmental power upon a religious institution as such (rather than upon American citizens who belong to the religious institution) is not the test of Grendel’s Den invalidity, there is no reason why giving power to a body that is overwhelmingly dominated by the members of one sect would not suffice to invoke the Establishment Clause. That might have made the entire States of Utah and New Mexico unconstitutional at the time of their admission to the Union,l and would undoubtedly make many units of local government unconstitutional today…”

“When a legislature acts to accommodate religion, particularly a minority sect, “it follows the best of our traditions.” Zorach, supra, at 314. The Constitution itself contains an accommodation of sorts. Article VI, cl. 3, prescribes that executive, legislative, and judicial officers of the Federal and State Governments shall bind themselves to support the Constitution “by Oath or Affirmation.” Although members of the most populous religions found no difficulty in swearing an oath to God, Quakers, Moravians, and Mennonites refused to take oaths based on Matthew 5:34’s injunction “swear not at all.” The option of affirmation was added to accommodate these minority religions and enable their members to serve in government. See 1 A. Stokes, Church and State in The United States 524-527 (1950). Congress, from its earliest sessions, passed laws accommodating religion by refunding duties paid by specific churches upon the importation of plates for the printing of Bibles, see 6 Stat. 116 (1813), vestments, 6 Stat. 346 (1816), and bells, 6 Stat. 675 (1836). Congress also exempted church property from the tax assessments it levied on residents of the District of Columbia; and all 50 States have had similar laws. See Walz, supra, at 676-678.”

Now, I’m pulling things out of context, and I urge you to read the entire case as well as brush up on case law.

This does not mean that we are a secular nation by any standard.