I've read Souter's majority opinion. FYI, here's the basic holding:
In essence, the counties couldn't even pass the first "Lemon" test -- the need to show a secular purpose. This is kind of funny, since government's typically get over that hurdle. [Usually, such things get bogged down on the effect side -- i.e., through having the effect of "advancing religion", regardless of formal intention]...
As a father of a 5 and 2 year old (we'll call them George and Jeb), the case reminds me of a typical scene around our house:
George wants a toy Jeb is playing with, and clobbers him, forcing Jeb break into a crying fit. When mommy asks what happened, George says, "I wanted that toy"... Mommy then tells George that's unacceptable behavior, and he will have to serve a big timeout for his actions....
George comes back an hour later, and says, "well really mommy, I was just trying to show Jeb that there are other toys he can play with" ... Of course, Mommy says, "well that's still not playing nice"...
Finally, George says, "ok... what I was REALLY doing was saving Jeb from a wild dog -- I was trying to save him"...
This is pretty close to what the counties tried to pull in this case: the initial purpose was to push religion; in response to the lawsuit, they then tried to push religion in a different way; and then finally, they tried to put lipstick on the pig, calling it "general education about law", or something...
The counties then tried to say the Court should only look at the last part of that history -- the first two efforts had nothing to do with any reasonable assessment of purpose...
Hank