Alan Keyes has definitively undermined the whole fiction of the “constitutional separation of church and state” argument, using the Alabama Ten Commandments case as his basis.
Keyes points out, as many people have done, that the First Amendment only restricts Congress from making a law establising a religion. And since there can be no federal law on the subject, then no part of the federal government, including the courts, can act in this area. Add to that the Tenth Amendment that says that powers not given to the federal government are reserved to the states or to the people. So, since the power of establishment of religion has been explicitly withheld from the federal government, it is reserved to the states or to the people.
Keyes then goes on to say why the 14th Amendment, often cited by the pro-separation crowd, does not bear here, and then distinguishes between individual rights and the rights of the people as a whole.
