Vegas odds favor Church over State

Two Constitutional sticking points have been recurring in my consciousness lately:

1. Sarah Palin's defense of religious freedom in response to Katie Couric's question during the recent interview. She recites the "separation of church and state" clause and then merely rephrases it in clumsy Palin-speak. She points to Thomas Jefferson's statement, "Never underestimate the wisdom of the people," as his defense against government-mandated religious practice. However, she neglected to comment on the people (or at least some of them) trying to mandate religious practice on the government. Maybe I'm just bitter, but the people are not always wise.

2. I was skimming through Thomas Paine's Rights of Man and came upon a wonderful quote that I regret not writing down. In short, the laws (of England, in this instance) had been in successful practice for hundreds of years, but were not written in stone-- nor should they be. As I read this, I immediately thought of the Second Amendment people who are stuck on "strict interpretation" yet love to cite contemporary authors as evidence. If Paine spoke out against strict interpretation then, I can only imagine what he'd think of the current state of politics. WWTPD?

3. And in a tidy fusion of the two, why is it okay to strictly interpret the Second Amendment while getting creative with the first one?