“Compared to the upcoming [Supreme Court] case on the Pledge of Allegiance and the use of the words ‘under God,'” David G. Savage writes in The Los Angeles Times, Locke v. Davey— a church/state case for which the court heard opening arguments yesterday — “is unlikely to receive much attention, but many legal experts say it will have a more far-reaching significance.” The sharply-divided court seems to concur on that at least — no one disputed Justice Stephen G. Breyer‘s declaration that “the implications of this case are breathtaking.” The case emerged from the state of Washington’s constitutional ban on using government money to finance religious education — in particular that of a bright, young would-be minister named Joshua Davey, who had hoped to win a state scholarship to attend an Assemblies of God college. Charles Lane offers a straightforward summary of yesterday’s arguments and a guide to the constitutional issues in The Washington Post, and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer gives a bit more of a hometown spin to the story, but The L.A. Times‘ Savage takes the most interesting approach, framing his coverage with a profile of Davey’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow. Sekulow, a Brooklyn-born Jewish convert to evangelical Christianity, is using the case as a battering ram with which to knock down church/state walls he and his law firm’s founder, Pat Robertson, consider un-American. He’s taking his fight to the courts and to the air — besides lawyering, Sekulow also hosts a show called Jay Sekulow Live!broadcast by 150 Christian radio stations, on which he interviewed Davey earlier this year. Savage’s follow-up report today digs deeper yet, identifying the roots of the state ban in 19th-century presidential politics — and, according to some conservative Catholic groups, “nativism and anti-Catholicism.” The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has posted amicus briefs from some of those groups, as well as from Jewish groups for and against striking down the ban — another schism, another story for religion writers in search of a fresh angle.