<P> In Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution prohibits states and the federal government from requiring any kind of religious test for public office . In the Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet (1994), The Court concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion ." In a series of cases in the first decade of the 2000s--Van Orden v. Perry (2005), McCreary County v. ACLU (2005), and Salazar v. Buono (2010)--the Court considered the issue of religious monuments on federal lands without reaching a majority reasoning on the subject . </P> <P> Everson used the metaphor of a wall of separation between church and state, derived from the correspondence of President Thomas Jefferson . It had been long established in the decisions of the Supreme Court, beginning with Reynolds v. United States in 1879, when the Court reviewed the history of the early Republic in deciding the extent of the liberties of Mormons . Chief Justice Morrison Waite, who consulted the historian George Bancroft, also discussed at some length the Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments by James Madison, who drafted the First Amendment; Madison used the metaphor of a "great barrier". </P> <P> In Everson, the Court adopted Jefferson's words . The Court has affirmed it often, with majority, but not unanimous, support . Warren Nord, in Does God Make a Difference?, characterized the general tendency of the dissents as a weaker reading of the First Amendment; the dissents tend to be "less concerned about the dangers of establishment and less concerned to protect free exercise rights, particularly of religious minorities ." </P> <P> Beginning with Everson, which permitted New Jersey school boards to pay for transportation to parochial schools, the Court has used various tests to determine when the wall of separation has been breached . Everson laid down the test that establishment existed when aid was given to religion, but that the transportation was justifiable because the benefit to the children was more important . In the school prayer cases of the early 1960s, (Engel v. Vitale and Abington School District v. Schempp), aid seemed irrelevant; the Court ruled on the basis that a legitimate action both served a secular purpose and did not primarily assist religion . In Walz v. Tax Commission (1970), the Court ruled that a legitimate action could not entangle government with religion; in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), these points were combined into the Lemon test, declaring that an action was an establishment if: </P>

Does § 8 abridges expression of the first amendment was meant to protect