Establishment Clause of the First Amendment
Encyclopedia
The Establishment Clause is the first of several pronouncements in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution
, stating,
Together with the Free Exercise Clause ("... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"), these two clauses make up what are called the "religion clauses" of the First Amendment.
The establishment clause has generally been interpreted to prohibit 1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress, or 2) the preference by the U.S. government of one religion over another. The first approach is called the "separation" or "no aid" interpretation, while the second approach is called the "non-preferential" or "accommodation" interpretation. The accommodation interpretation prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another, but does not prohibit the government's entry into religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause.
's efforts to have the constitution ratified. Virginia had disestablished the gentry-supported Church of England
during and after the American Revolution
. This left the Baptist
s, a white middle-class denomination, in a position of political influence. Col. Thomas Barber, an opponent of the constitution in Madison's home of Orange County, Virginia
, began a campaign for election to the state ratifying convention. He garnered support among the local Baptists by warning them that the constitution had no safeguard against creating a new national church. To head off Barber's challenge, Madison met with influential Baptist preacher John Leland
and promised that, in exchange for Leland's support of ratification, he would sponsor several amendments that were ultimately combined into the First Amendment.
in 1868, the Supreme Court generally held that the substantive protections of the Bill of Rights
did not apply to state governments. Subsequently, under the Incorporation doctrine, the Bill of Rights has been broadly applied to limit state and local government as well. The process of incorporating the two Religion Clauses in the First Amendment was twofold. The first step was the Supreme Court’s conclusion in 1940 that the Free Exercise Clause was made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Conceptually, this raised few difficulties: the Due Process Clause protects those rights in the Bill of Rights “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” and free exercise of religion is a quintessential individual right (and had been recognized as such at the state level from the beginning).
Incorporation of the Establishment Clause in 1947, however, was much more tricky and has been subject to much more critique. The controversy surrounding Establishment Clause incorporation primarily stems from the fact that one of the intentions of the Establishment Clause was to prevent Congress from interfering with state establishments of religion that existed at the time of the founding (at least six states had established religions at the founding) – a fact conceded by even those members of the Court who believe the Establishment Clause was made applicable to the states through incorporation. Critics have also argued that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is understood to incorporate only individual rights found in the Bill of Rights; the Establishment Clause unlike the Free Exercise Clause (which critics readily concede protects individual rights) does not purport to protect individual rights.
organization—the hospital—and was therefore permissible.
In the twentieth century, the Supreme Court more closely scrutinized government activity involving religious institutions. In Everson v. Board of Education
(1947), the Supreme Court upheld a New Jersey
statute funding student transportation to schools, whether parochial
or not. Justice Hugo Black
held,
The New Jersey law was upheld, for it applied "to all its citizens without regard to their religious belief." After Everson lawsuits in several states sought to disentangle public moneys from religious teaching, the leading case being the 1951 Dixon School Case
out of New Mexico.
The Jefferson quotation cited in Black's opinion is from a letter Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Baptists of Danbury
, Connecticut
, that there should be "a wall of separation between church and state." Critics of Black's reasoning (most notably, former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist) have argued that the majority of states did have "official" churches at the time of the First Amendment's adoption and that James Madison
, not Jefferson, was the principal drafter. However, Madison himself often wrote of "perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters" (1822 letter to Livingston), "line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority... entire abstinence of the government" (1832 letter Rev. Adams), and "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States" (1811 letter to Baptist Churches).
In Lemon v. Kurtzman
(1971), the Supreme Court ruled that government may not "excessively entangle" with religion. The case involved two state laws: one permitting the state to "purchase" services in secular fields from religious schools, and the other permitting the state to pay a percentage of the salaries of private school teachers, including teachers in religious institutions. The Supreme Court found that the government was "excessively entangled" with religion, and invalidated the statutes in question. The excessive entanglement test, together with the secular purpose and primary effect tests thereafter became known as the Lemon test, which judges have often used to test the constitutionality of a statute on establishment clause grounds.
The Supreme Court decided Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist and Sloan v. Lemon in 1973. In both cases, states—New York
and Pennsylvania
—had enacted laws whereby public tax
revenues would be paid to low-income parents so as to permit them to send students to private schools. It was held that in both cases, the state unconstitutionally provided aid to religious organizations. The ruling was partially reversed in Mueller v. Allen (1983). There, the Court upheld a Minnesota
statute permitting the use of tax revenues to reimburse parents of students. The Court noted that the Minnesota statute granted such aid to parents of all students, whether they attended public or private schools.
While the Court has prevented states from directly funding parochial schools, it has not stopped them from aiding religious colleges and universities. In Tilton v. Richardson (1971), the Court permitted the use of public funds for the construction of facilities in religious institutions of higher learning. It was found that there was no "excessive entanglement" since the buildings were themselves not religious, unlike teachers in parochial schools, and because the aid came in the form of a one-time grant, rather than continuous assistance.
One of the largest recent controversies over the amendment centered on school vouchers—government aid for students to attend private and predominantly religious schools. The Supreme Court, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
(2002), upheld the constitutionality of private school vouchers, turning away an Establishment Clause challenge.
Further important decisions came in the 1960s, during the Warren Court
era. One of the Court's most controversial decisions came in Engel v. Vitale
in 1962. The case involved the mandatory daily recitation by public school officials of a prayer written by the New York
Board of Regents, which read "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country". The Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional and struck it down, with Justice Black writing "it is no part of the official business of government to compose official prayers for any group of American people to recite as part of a religious program carried out by the Government." The reading of the Lord's Prayer
or of the Bible
in the classroom of a public school by the teacher was ruled unconstitutional in 1963. The ruling did not apply to parochial or private schools in general. The decision has been met with both criticism and praise. Many social conservatives are critical of the court's reasoning, including the late Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist. Conversely, the ACLU and other civil libertarian groups hailed the court's decision.
In Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), the case involving the mandatory reading of the Lord's Prayer in class, the Supreme Court introduced the "secular purpose" and "primary effect" tests, which were to be used to determine compatibility with the establishment clause. Essentially, the law in question must have a valid secular purpose, and its primary effect must not be to promote or inhibit a particular religion. Since the law requiring the recital of the Lord's Prayer violated these tests, it was struck down. The "excessive entanglement" test was added in Lemon v. Kurtzman (vide supra).
In Wallace v. Jaffree
(1985), the Supreme Court struck down an Alabama
law whereby students in public schools would observe daily a period of silence for the purpose of private prayer. The Court did not, however, find that the moment of silence was itself unconstitutional. Rather, it ruled that Alabama lawmakers had passed the statute solely to advance religion, thereby violating the secular purpose test.
The 1990s were marked by controversies surrounding religion's role in public affairs. In Lee v. Weisman
(1992), the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the offering of prayers by religious officials before voluntarily attended ceremonies such as graduation. Thus, the Court established that the state could not conduct religious exercises at public occasions even if attendance was not strictly compulsory. In Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe
(2000), the Court ruled that a vote of the student body could not authorize student-led prayer prior to school events.
In 2002, controversy centered on a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow
(2002), which struck down a California
law providing for the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance
(which includes the phrase "under God") in classrooms. Each House of Congress passed resolutions reaffirming their support for the pledge; the Senate
vote was 99–0 and the House vote was 416–3. The Supreme Court heard arguments on the case, but did not rule on the merits, instead reversing the Ninth Circuit's decision on standing
grounds.
(1984), and again in Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU (1989). In the former case, the Court upheld the public display of a crèche
, ruling that any benefit to religion was "indirect, remote, and incidental." In Allegheny County, however, the Court struck down a crèche display, which occupied a prominent position in the county courthouse and bore the words Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the words sung by the angel
s at the Nativity
(Luke 2:14 in the Latin
Vulgate
translation). At the same time, the Allegheny County Court upheld the display of a nearby menorah, which appeared along with a Christmas tree and a sign saluting liberty, reasoning that "the combined display of the tree, the sign, and the menorah ... simply recognizes that both Christmas
and Hanukkah
are part of the same winter-holiday season
, which has attained a secular status in our society."
In 2001, Roy Moore
, then Chief Justice of Alabama
, installed a monument to the Ten Commandments
in the state judicial building. In 2003, he was ordered in the case of Glassroth v. Moore
by a federal judge to remove the monument, but he refused to comply, ultimately leading to his removal from office. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, allowing the lower court's decision to stand.
On March 2, 2005, the Supreme Court heard arguments for two cases involving religious displays, Van Orden v. Perry
and McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky
. These were the first cases directly dealing with display of the Ten Commandments the Court had heard since Stone v. Graham
(1980). These cases were decided on June 27, 2005. In Van Orden, the Court upheld, by a 5-4 vote, the legality of a Ten Commandments display at the Texas
state capitol due to the monument's "secular purpose." In McCreary County, however, the Court ruled 5-4 that displays of the Ten Commandments in several Kentucky
county courthouses were illegal because they were not clearly integrated with a secular display, and thus were considered to have a religious purpose.
First Amendment to the United States Constitution
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering...
, stating,
Together with the Free Exercise Clause ("... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"), these two clauses make up what are called the "religion clauses" of the First Amendment.
The establishment clause has generally been interpreted to prohibit 1) the establishment of a national religion by Congress, or 2) the preference by the U.S. government of one religion over another. The first approach is called the "separation" or "no aid" interpretation, while the second approach is called the "non-preferential" or "accommodation" interpretation. The accommodation interpretation prohibits Congress from preferring one religion over another, but does not prohibit the government's entry into religious domain to make accommodations in order to achieve the purposes of the Free Exercise Clause.
Origin
The establishment clause arose during James MadisonJames Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
's efforts to have the constitution ratified. Virginia had disestablished the gentry-supported Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
during and after the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
. This left the Baptist
Baptist
Baptists comprise a group of Christian denominations and churches that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers , and that it must be done by immersion...
s, a white middle-class denomination, in a position of political influence. Col. Thomas Barber, an opponent of the constitution in Madison's home of Orange County, Virginia
Orange County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 25,881 people, 10,150 households, and 7,470 families residing in the county. The population density was 76 people per square mile . There were 11,354 housing units at an average density of 33 per square mile...
, began a campaign for election to the state ratifying convention. He garnered support among the local Baptists by warning them that the constitution had no safeguard against creating a new national church. To head off Barber's challenge, Madison met with influential Baptist preacher John Leland
John Leland (Baptist)
John Leland was a Baptist minister in Massachusetts and Virginia. He was an important figure in the struggle for religious liberty in the United States. Leland was also an outspoken critic of slavery...
and promised that, in exchange for Leland's support of ratification, he would sponsor several amendments that were ultimately combined into the First Amendment.
Incorporation
Prior to the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionFourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments.Its Citizenship Clause provides a broad definition of citizenship that overruled the Dred Scott v...
in 1868, the Supreme Court generally held that the substantive protections of the Bill of Rights
United States Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. These limitations serve to protect the natural rights of liberty and property. They guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and...
did not apply to state governments. Subsequently, under the Incorporation doctrine, the Bill of Rights has been broadly applied to limit state and local government as well. The process of incorporating the two Religion Clauses in the First Amendment was twofold. The first step was the Supreme Court’s conclusion in 1940 that the Free Exercise Clause was made applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Conceptually, this raised few difficulties: the Due Process Clause protects those rights in the Bill of Rights “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,” and free exercise of religion is a quintessential individual right (and had been recognized as such at the state level from the beginning).
Incorporation of the Establishment Clause in 1947, however, was much more tricky and has been subject to much more critique. The controversy surrounding Establishment Clause incorporation primarily stems from the fact that one of the intentions of the Establishment Clause was to prevent Congress from interfering with state establishments of religion that existed at the time of the founding (at least six states had established religions at the founding) – a fact conceded by even those members of the Court who believe the Establishment Clause was made applicable to the states through incorporation. Critics have also argued that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is understood to incorporate only individual rights found in the Bill of Rights; the Establishment Clause unlike the Free Exercise Clause (which critics readily concede protects individual rights) does not purport to protect individual rights.
Financial assistance
The Supreme Court first considered the question of financial assistance to religious organizations in Bradfield v. Roberts (1899). The federal government had funded a hospital operated by a Roman Catholic institution. In that case, the Court ruled that the funding was to a secularSecularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
organization—the hospital—and was therefore permissible.
In the twentieth century, the Supreme Court more closely scrutinized government activity involving religious institutions. In Everson v. Board of Education
Everson v. Board of Education
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which applied the religion clauses in the country's Bill of Rights to state as well as federal law...
(1947), the Supreme Court upheld a New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
statute funding student transportation to schools, whether parochial
Parochial school
A parochial school is a school that provides religious education in addition to conventional education. In a narrower sense, a parochial school is a Christian grammar school or high school which is part of, and run by, a parish.-United Kingdom:...
or not. Justice Hugo Black
Hugo Black
Hugo Lafayette Black was an American politician and jurist. A member of the Democratic Party, Black represented Alabama in the United States Senate from 1927 to 1937, and served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1937 to 1971. Black was nominated to the Supreme...
held,
The New Jersey law was upheld, for it applied "to all its citizens without regard to their religious belief." After Everson lawsuits in several states sought to disentangle public moneys from religious teaching, the leading case being the 1951 Dixon School Case
Dixon School Case
The Dixon School Case was a lawsuit started in 1948 in New Mexico contesting the use of nuns, religious brothers and priests as teachers in publicly supported schools under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution...
out of New Mexico.
The Jefferson quotation cited in Black's opinion is from a letter Jefferson wrote in 1802 to the Baptists of Danbury
Danbury, Connecticut
Danbury is a city in northern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It had population at the 2010 census of 80,893. Danbury is the fourth largest city in Fairfield County and is the seventh largest city in Connecticut....
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
, that there should be "a wall of separation between church and state." Critics of Black's reasoning (most notably, former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist) have argued that the majority of states did have "official" churches at the time of the First Amendment's adoption and that James Madison
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...
, not Jefferson, was the principal drafter. However, Madison himself often wrote of "perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters" (1822 letter to Livingston), "line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority... entire abstinence of the government" (1832 letter Rev. Adams), and "practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States" (1811 letter to Baptist Churches).
In Lemon v. Kurtzman
Lemon v. Kurtzman
Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Pennsylvania's 1968 Nonpublic Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which allowed the state Superintendent of Public Instruction to reimburse nonpublic schools for the salaries of teachers who...
(1971), the Supreme Court ruled that government may not "excessively entangle" with religion. The case involved two state laws: one permitting the state to "purchase" services in secular fields from religious schools, and the other permitting the state to pay a percentage of the salaries of private school teachers, including teachers in religious institutions. The Supreme Court found that the government was "excessively entangled" with religion, and invalidated the statutes in question. The excessive entanglement test, together with the secular purpose and primary effect tests thereafter became known as the Lemon test, which judges have often used to test the constitutionality of a statute on establishment clause grounds.
The Supreme Court decided Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist and Sloan v. Lemon in 1973. In both cases, states—New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
—had enacted laws whereby public tax
Tax
To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
revenues would be paid to low-income parents so as to permit them to send students to private schools. It was held that in both cases, the state unconstitutionally provided aid to religious organizations. The ruling was partially reversed in Mueller v. Allen (1983). There, the Court upheld a Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
statute permitting the use of tax revenues to reimburse parents of students. The Court noted that the Minnesota statute granted such aid to parents of all students, whether they attended public or private schools.
While the Court has prevented states from directly funding parochial schools, it has not stopped them from aiding religious colleges and universities. In Tilton v. Richardson (1971), the Court permitted the use of public funds for the construction of facilities in religious institutions of higher learning. It was found that there was no "excessive entanglement" since the buildings were themselves not religious, unlike teachers in parochial schools, and because the aid came in the form of a one-time grant, rather than continuous assistance.
One of the largest recent controversies over the amendment centered on school vouchers—government aid for students to attend private and predominantly religious schools. The Supreme Court, in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, , was a case decided by the United States Supreme Court which tested the allowance of school vouchers in relation to the establishment clause of the First Amendment....
(2002), upheld the constitutionality of private school vouchers, turning away an Establishment Clause challenge.
State-sanctioned prayer in public schools
Warren Court
The Warren Court refers to the Supreme Court of the United States between 1953 and 1969, when Earl Warren served as Chief Justice. Warren led a liberal majority that used judicial power in dramatic fashion, to the consternation of conservative opponents...
era. One of the Court's most controversial decisions came in Engel v. Vitale
Engel v. Vitale
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case that determined that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and require its recitation in public schools....
in 1962. The case involved the mandatory daily recitation by public school officials of a prayer written by the New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
Board of Regents, which read "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country". The Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional and struck it down, with Justice Black writing "it is no part of the official business of government to compose official prayers for any group of American people to recite as part of a religious program carried out by the Government." The reading of the Lord's Prayer
Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer is a central prayer in Christianity. In the New Testament of the Christian Bible, it appears in two forms: in the Gospel of Matthew as part of the discourse on ostentation in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Gospel of Luke, which records Jesus being approached by "one of his...
or of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
in the classroom of a public school by the teacher was ruled unconstitutional in 1963. The ruling did not apply to parochial or private schools in general. The decision has been met with both criticism and praise. Many social conservatives are critical of the court's reasoning, including the late Chief Justice
Chief Justice
The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...
William H. Rehnquist. Conversely, the ACLU and other civil libertarian groups hailed the court's decision.
In Abington Township v. Schempp (1963), the case involving the mandatory reading of the Lord's Prayer in class, the Supreme Court introduced the "secular purpose" and "primary effect" tests, which were to be used to determine compatibility with the establishment clause. Essentially, the law in question must have a valid secular purpose, and its primary effect must not be to promote or inhibit a particular religion. Since the law requiring the recital of the Lord's Prayer violated these tests, it was struck down. The "excessive entanglement" test was added in Lemon v. Kurtzman (vide supra).
In Wallace v. Jaffree
Wallace v. Jaffree
Wallace v. Jaffree, , was a United States Supreme Court case deciding on the issue of silent school prayer.An Alabama law authorized teachers to set aside one minute at the start of each day for a moment of "silent meditation or voluntary prayer," and sometimes the teacher of the classroom asked...
(1985), the Supreme Court struck down an Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
law whereby students in public schools would observe daily a period of silence for the purpose of private prayer. The Court did not, however, find that the moment of silence was itself unconstitutional. Rather, it ruled that Alabama lawmakers had passed the statute solely to advance religion, thereby violating the secular purpose test.
The 1990s were marked by controversies surrounding religion's role in public affairs. In Lee v. Weisman
Lee v. Weisman
Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577 , was a United States Supreme Court decision regarding school prayer. It was the first major school prayer case decided by the Rehnquist Court. It involved prayers led by religious authority figures at public school graduation ceremonies...
(1992), the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the offering of prayers by religious officials before voluntarily attended ceremonies such as graduation. Thus, the Court established that the state could not conduct religious exercises at public occasions even if attendance was not strictly compulsory. In Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe
Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe
Santa Fe Independent School Dist. v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 , was a case heard before the United States Supreme Court. It ruled that a policy permitting student-led, student-initiated prayer at high school football games violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Oral arguments were heard...
(2000), the Court ruled that a vote of the student body could not authorize student-led prayer prior to school events.
In 2002, controversy centered on a ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is a U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts:* District of Alaska* District of Arizona...
in Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow
Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow
Newdow v. United States Congress, Elk Grove Unified School District, et al., 542 U.S. 1 , was a lawsuit originally filed in 2000 which led to a 2002 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are an endorsement of...
(2002), which struck down a California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
law providing for the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance
Pledge of Allegiance
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is an expression of loyalty to the federal flag and the republic of the United States of America, originally composed by Christian Socialist Francis Bellamy in 1892 and formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942...
(which includes the phrase "under God") in classrooms. Each House of Congress passed resolutions reaffirming their support for the pledge; the Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
vote was 99–0 and the House vote was 416–3. The Supreme Court heard arguments on the case, but did not rule on the merits, instead reversing the Ninth Circuit's decision on standing
Standing (law)
In law, standing or locus standi is the term for the ability of a party to demonstrate to the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case...
grounds.
Religious displays
The inclusion of religious symbols in public holiday displays came before the Supreme Court in Lynch v. DonnellyLynch v. Donnelly
Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 , was a case in the Supreme Court of the United States challenging the legality of holiday decorations on town property.-Background:...
(1984), and again in Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU (1989). In the former case, the Court upheld the public display of a crèche
Nativity scene
A nativity scene, manger scene, krippe, crèche, or crib, is a depiction of the birth of Jesus as described in the gospels of Matthew and Luke...
, ruling that any benefit to religion was "indirect, remote, and incidental." In Allegheny County, however, the Court struck down a crèche display, which occupied a prominent position in the county courthouse and bore the words Gloria in Excelsis Deo, the words sung by the angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
s at the Nativity
Nativity of Jesus
The Nativity of Jesus, or simply The Nativity, refers to the accounts of the birth of Jesus in two of the Canonical gospels and in various apocryphal texts....
(Luke 2:14 in the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
Vulgate
Vulgate
The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...
translation). At the same time, the Allegheny County Court upheld the display of a nearby menorah, which appeared along with a Christmas tree and a sign saluting liberty, reasoning that "the combined display of the tree, the sign, and the menorah ... simply recognizes that both Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
and Hanukkah
Hanukkah
Hanukkah , also known as the Festival of Lights, is an eight-day Jewish holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem at the time of the Maccabean Revolt of the 2nd century BCE...
are part of the same winter-holiday season
Winter holiday season
The Christmas season, the holiday season, or simply the holidays is an annual festive period that surrounds Christmas and various other holidays. It is generally considered to run from late November to early January. Its relation to Christmas in official use by schools and governments has resulted...
, which has attained a secular status in our society."
In 2001, Roy Moore
Roy Moore
Roy Stewart Moore is an American jurist and Republican politician noted for his refusal, as the elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the state courthouse despite orders to do so from a federal judge...
, then Chief Justice of Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...
, installed a monument to the Ten Commandments
Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...
in the state judicial building. In 2003, he was ordered in the case of Glassroth v. Moore
Glassroth v. Moore
Glassroth v. Moore, CV-01-T-1268-N, 229 F. Supp. 2d 1290 , and its companion case Maddox and Howard v. Moore, CV-01-T-1269-N, concern then-Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy S...
by a federal judge to remove the monument, but he refused to comply, ultimately leading to his removal from office. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case, allowing the lower court's decision to stand.
On March 2, 2005, the Supreme Court heard arguments for two cases involving religious displays, Van Orden v. Perry
Van Orden v. Perry
Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States of America, involving whether a display of the Ten Commandments on a monument given to the government at the Texas State Capitol in Austin violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.In a...
and McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky
McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky
McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, , is a case which was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on March 2, 2005. At issue is whether government-sponsored displays of the Ten Commandments in county courthouses violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.In a suit...
. These were the first cases directly dealing with display of the Ten Commandments the Court had heard since Stone v. Graham
Stone v. Graham
Stone v. Graham, , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a Kentucky statute requiring the posting of a copy of the Ten Commandments, purchased with private contributions, on the wall of each public classroom in the State, was unconstitutional, in violation of the...
(1980). These cases were decided on June 27, 2005. In Van Orden, the Court upheld, by a 5-4 vote, the legality of a Ten Commandments display at the Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
state capitol due to the monument's "secular purpose." In McCreary County, however, the Court ruled 5-4 that displays of the Ten Commandments in several Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
county courthouses were illegal because they were not clearly integrated with a secular display, and thus were considered to have a religious purpose.
See also
- Faith-based initiatives
- Free Exercise Clause of the First AmendmentFree Exercise Clause of the First AmendmentThe Free Exercise Clause is the accompanying clause with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause together read:...
- Separation of church and state in the United StatesSeparation of church and state in the United StatesThe phrase "separation of church and state" , attributed to Thomas Jefferson and others, and since quoted by the Supreme Court of the United States, expresses an understanding of the intent and function of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States...
- United States religious history
Research resources
- First Amendment Library entry for Establishment Clause Cases (with links to all of the Supreme Court's Establishment Clause cases)
- Defending Jefferson's "wall of separation" metaphor
- Religious Expression in American Public Life: A Joint Statement of Current Law