The Path to Disincorporation
The Supreme Court over the last two decades has repeatedly strengthened the expanded reach of the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses to protect the religious. At the same time, the Court has moved...
View ArticleRecovering an American Tradition
Religious liberty, like any freedom, requires careful compromises. But it is also unique, reflecting the fact that its subject includes individuals’ deepest convictions about their own nature and...
View ArticleVictory Formation
Football metaphors are often apt for politics and law, arenas in which two competing views vie to move the ball down the field, as it were, with incremental progress. Political parties are often...
View ArticleEstablishing Religious Freedom
The just-concluded Supreme Court term might be seen as a project of constitutional restoration, especially in the area of religious liberty. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Court held...
View ArticleReligious Schools and the Freedom of the Church
In a pair of cases involving the religious-freedom rights of parochial schools, the Supreme Court on Wednesday re-affirmed a core First Amendment rule and a crucial aspect of church-state separation,...
View ArticleWill the Court Finally Kill the Lemon Test Ghoul?
In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Justice Hugo Black clearly proclaimed that the “First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We...
View ArticleThe Court Should Tear Down Everson, Not the Maryland Cross
Nearly a century ago, the State of Maryland permitted a group of citizens to establish a memorial cross for veterans of World War I on property owned and maintained by the state. This cross is still...
View ArticleReligion Currently Poses Less Danger to Democracy Than Other Social Movements
In my last post, I described why religious sentiments can help democracy produce public goods and beneficial reforms. Of course, religious sentiments are not the only kind of attitude toward the...
View ArticleWhen the Enlightenment and Evangelical Christianity Got Together
Last week, on January 16, America marked Religious Freedom Day. The day commemorates enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1786, a precursor of the First Amendment. Written by...
View ArticleRoger Sherman: An Old Puritan in the New Republic
Connecticut’s Roger Sherman was the only Founder to help draft and sign the Declaration and Resolves (1774), the Articles of Association (1774), the Declaration of American Independence (1776), the...
View ArticleEverson’s Syllogism
Almost every constitutional law scholar—Left, Right, and center—agrees that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence is, to put it kindly, confused. Much of the blame for this mess...
View ArticleThe Christmas Holiday of 1870 and the Establishment Clause
It does not take a sophisticated legal realist to recognize the hopelessness of any claim that the status of Christmas as a state or federal holiday violates the Establishment Clause. Justices don’t...
View ArticleVictory in Spite of Ourselves
David Cortman showed remarkable poise and command last January when he made his first appearance before the Supreme Court. The case was Reed v. Gilbert, and he represented the cause of a small,...
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Pantagruel Comes for the Establishment Clause
In the second book of the 16th century novel by Rabelais, the voracious young giant Pantagruel, “large as life and much nosier,” is sent to Paris for his education. There he displays prodigious...
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Will the Court Finally Kill the Lemon Test Ghoul?
Rather than continuing to apply the Lemon Test the Court should rely on an accurate account of the founders’ understanding of the Establishment Clause.
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The Court Should Tear Down Everson, Not the Maryland Cross
Maryland Memorial Cross (First Liberty Institute)Does this Maryland cross violate our Constitution? That very question is currently before the Supreme Court.
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Religion Currently Poses Less Danger to Democracy Than Other Social Movements
Stone relief depicting Wilberforce and the freedom from slavery in Strasbourg, France (Philip Bird LRPS CPAGB / Shutterstock.com).Democracies need all the help they can get, including religion, to...
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When the Enlightenment and Evangelical Christianity Got Together
A statue of Thomas Jefferson includes this figure holding a tablet bearing several names that different belief systems have for a higher power, titled “Religious Freedom, 1786.”Last week, on January...
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Roger Sherman: An Old Puritan in the New Republic
Connecticut’s Roger Sherman was the only Founder to help draft and sign the Declaration and Resolves (1774), the Articles of Association (1774), the Declaration of American Independence (1776), the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Everson‘s Syllogism
Almost every constitutional law scholar—Left, Right, and center—agrees that the U.S. Supreme Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence is, to put it kindly, confused. Much of the blame for this mess...
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