I just saw this ad on telly:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in conjunction with the Ad Council (both orga­ni­za­tions about which I have nothing positive to say), has funded and produced an adver­tisement featuring religious figures endorsing and promoting government programs. No mention of the featured anthro­po­morphic vegetables’ religious affil­i­ation is mentioned. Something about using explicitly religious char­acters to encourage children to follow government health advice strikes me as something less than neutral to religion, despite the secular purpose.

But because promoting the health of children is a “legit­imate secular purpose”, this kind of thing doesn’t violate the current inter­pre­tation of the Establishment Clause. Tax dollars have been used to pay Veggietales licencing fees, but just like school vouchers and state-​​funded busing to religious schools, the under­lying “legit­imate” secular purpose allows for subtle but persistent inter­action between government and religion that only helps to further erode cultural recog­nition and accep­tance of the “wall of separation.”