although nowadays there’s much more focus around making sure the church stays out of the government’s space than vice versa.

I think that’s debatable. Conservatives believe that they’re engaged in a fight to keep the government out of regulating how and where they can express their religious views.

I’m not going to defend Palin in general, but as far as this point goes I don’t think her answer was that bad. The way I see it, both Palin and Biden expressed two reasons why the wall is important:

1) Palin: Poeple have the right to believe as they chose and express those beliefs. So government needs to stay out of those matters.

2) Biden: Governments that allow themselves to be ruled by religion end up in bad shape. So religion needs to stay out of government.

Really, I think those are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have government involved in religion without also having religion involved in government. They are not two separate things.