The establishment clause is "[t]he First Amendment provision that prohibits the federal and state governments from establishing an official religion, or from favoring or disfavoring one view of religion over another."[1]
Originally, the First Amendment applied only to the federal government. A number of the states effectively had established churches when the First Amendment was ratified, with some remaining into the early nineteenth century.
Subsequently, Everson v. Board of Education (1947) incorporated the Establishment Clause (i.e., made it apply against the states). However, it was not until the middle to late twentieth century that the Supreme Court began to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in such a manner as to restrict the promotion of religion by the states. In the Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994), Justice David Souter, writing for the majority, concluded that "government should not prefer one religion to another, or religion to irreligion."[2]
Separationists
Everson used the metaphor of a wall of separation between church and state, derived from the correspondence of President Thomas Jefferson. It had been long established in the decisions of the Supreme Court, beginning with Reynolds v. United States from 1879, when the Court reviewed the history of the early Republic in deciding the extent of the liberties of Mormons. Chief Justice Morrison Waite, who consulted the historian George Bancroft, also discussed at some length the Memorial against Religious Assessments by James Madison, who drafted the First Amendment; Madison used the metaphor of a "great barrier."[3]
Justice Hugo Black adopted Jefferson's words in the voice of the Court, and concluded that "government must be neutral among religions and nonreligion: it cannot promote, endorse, or fund religion or religious institutions."[4] The Court has affirmed it often, with majority, but not unanimous, support. Warren Nord, in Does God Make a Difference?, characterized the general tendency of the dissents as a weaker reading of the First Amendment; the dissents tend to be "less concerned about the dangers of establishment and less concerned to protect free exercise rights, particularly of religious minorities."[5]
Beginning with the Everson decision itself, which permitted New Jersey school boards to pay for transportation to parochial schools, the Court has used various tests to determine when the wall of separation has been breached. The Everson decision laid down the test that establishment existed when aid was given to religion, but that the transportation was justifiable because the benefit to the children was more important. In the school prayer cases of the early 1960s, (Engel v. Vitale and School District of Abington Township v. Schempp), aid seemed irrelevant; the Court ruled on the basis that a legitimate action both served a secular purpose and did not primarily assist religion. In Walz v. Tax Commission, the Court ruled that a legitimate action could not entangle government with religion; in Lemon v. Kurtzman, these points were combined, declaring that an action was not establishment if
- the statute (or practice) has a secular purpose;
- its principal or primary effect neither advances nor inhibits religion; and
- it does not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.
This Lemon test has been criticized by Justices and legal scholars, but it remains the predominant means by which the Court enforces the Establishment Clause.[6] In Agostini v. Felton, the entanglement prong of the Lemon test was demoted to simply being a factor in determining the effect of the challenged statute or practice.[7] In Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, the opinion of the Court considered secular purpose and the absence of primary effect; a concurring opinion saw both cases as having treated entanglement as part of the primary purpose test.[6]
Accommodationists
Accommodationists, on the other hand, read the Establishment Clause as prohibiting the Congress or any state from declaring an official religion or preferring one to another, but hold that laws do not have to be shorn of morality and history to be declared constitutional.[8] As a result, they apply the Lemon Test only selectively, holding Justice Douglas' statement in Zorach v. Clauson, "[w]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being" 343 U.S. 306 (1952).[8][9]
As such, for many conservatives, the Establishment Clause solely prevents the establishing of a state church, not from publicly acknowledging God and "developing policies that encourage general religious beliefs that do not favor a particular sect and are consistent with the secular government's goals."[10][11]"
Now I know that there's a lot to read there, but it's actually well worth it considering all of the stupidity that is trying to be forced onto us these days. However with religion right now trying to get into just about everything, it reminds me of just about everything that the Catholic Church had done back in the day when it came to what was going on around the world. They wanted to control everything, and it ended up hurting most of the world when they did that, the thing was that they didn't mind being in control of a world that really didn't mind being simple minded robots. These days however, that time is long gone and there's people that are actually thinking for themselves these days. (Yes I've got a major thing against the Catholic organization considering all of the hypocritical things that they've talked about and done.)
Now on the side of gay rights, that's been something that religion has been trying to get killed for ages, but just like they want to say and think that evolution doesn't exsist, I hate to say it but to learn and expand is evolution. So to say that gays shouldn't have any rights, try putting them in your shoes and see how they happen to live. Plus they say that being gay is an option and that people don't have to be gay, that's another lie. Being gay is hard wired into those that are gay, and they are that way from birth and nothing can change that ever, no matter what people say.
Now I know that I've gone more on anti religion (that's because I have a relationship and not religion, I hate religion period and always will) than I did on gay rights, but that's mostly because of my lack of time currently. However I will eventually get back to this topic and more later, but this is at least a start here.
--
No comments:
Post a Comment