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Full-Text Articles in Law
Is There Any Silver Lining To Trinity Lutheran Church, Inc. V. Comer?, Caroline Mala Corbin
Is There Any Silver Lining To Trinity Lutheran Church, Inc. V. Comer?, Caroline Mala Corbin
Michigan Law Review Online
Trinity Lutheran Church, Inc. v. Comer is a significant setback for a strong separation of church and state. Missouri denied a playground grant to Trinity Lutheran because of a state constitutional provision that bans financial aid to churches. The church sued. The Supreme Court held not only that the Establishment Clause allowed the government to give taxpayer money to Trinity Lutheran, but that the Free Exercise Clause required it. The decision's many flaws are not the focus of this short Essay. Instead, this Essay dissects the Supreme Court's reasoning in order to apply it to current controversies in related areas …
Sex And Religion: Unholy Bedfellows, Mary-Rose Papandrea
Sex And Religion: Unholy Bedfellows, Mary-Rose Papandrea
Michigan Law Review
A review of Geoffrey R. Stone, Sex and the Constitution: Sex, Religion, and Law from America's Origins to the Twenty-First Century.
Towards A Balanced Approach For The Protection Of Native American Sacred Sites, Alex Tallchief Skibine
Towards A Balanced Approach For The Protection Of Native American Sacred Sites, Alex Tallchief Skibine
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Protection of "sacred sites" is very important to Native American religious practitioners because it is intrinsically tied to the survival of their cultures, and therefore to their survival as distinct peoples. The Supreme Court in Oregon v. Smith held that rational basis review, and not strict scrutiny, was the appropriate level of judicial review when evaluating the constitutionality of neutral laws of general applicability even when these laws impacted one's ability to practice a religion. Reacting to the decision, Congress enacted the Relgious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which reinstated the strict scrutiny test for challenges to neutral laws of general …
Putting Religious Symbolism In Context: A Linguistic Critique Of The Endorsement Test, B. Jessie Hill
Putting Religious Symbolism In Context: A Linguistic Critique Of The Endorsement Test, B. Jessie Hill
Michigan Law Review
The treatment of Establishment Clause challenges to displays of religious symbolism by the Supreme Court and the lower courts is notoriously unpredictable: a crèche is constitutionally acceptable if it is accompanied by a Santa Claus house and reindeer, a Christmas tree, and various circus figures, but unacceptable if it is accompanied by poinsettias, a "peace tree," or a wreath, a tree, and a plastic Santa Claus. A menorah may be displayed next to a Christmas tree, or next to Kwanzaa symbols, Santa Claus, and Frosty the Snowman, but not next to a crèche and a Christmas tree. A number of …
The Free Exercise Of Religion And Public Schools: The Implications Of Hybrid Rights On The Religious Upbringing Of Children, Michael E. Lechliter
The Free Exercise Of Religion And Public Schools: The Implications Of Hybrid Rights On The Religious Upbringing Of Children, Michael E. Lechliter
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that parents have a fundamental right under the U.S. Constitution to direct the religious upbringing of their children and that courts interpreting Smith have systematically misunderstood and misapplied the Supreme Court's confusing hybrid rights language. Part I explains how Yoder and Smith create and preserve parents' right to direct the religious upbringing of their children. The essential point is that the free exercise right and the parental right are not examined independently and simply added together, but instead are incorporated together to provide a specific bite to the free exercise claim. Part I also examines the lower …
A Response To Professor Rubenfeld, Jonathan D. Hacker
A Response To Professor Rubenfeld, Jonathan D. Hacker
Michigan Law Review
Professor Jed Rubenfeld has offered in these pages an ingenious explanation for why the Supreme Court was right to strike down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in City of Boerne v. Flores. Rubenfeld finds in the First Amendment's Establishment Clause a historical and inherent principle he calls "antidisestablishmentarianism": a prohibition on acts of Congress that "disestablish" religion in the several states. Rubenfeld reads the Establishment Clause as proscribing not only congressional acts that "establish" religion but also all congressional acts that "dictate a position on religion for states," including laws designed to ensure that states abide by the requirements …
Reply: Did The Fourteenth Amendment Repeal The First?, Jed Rubenfeld
Reply: Did The Fourteenth Amendment Repeal The First?, Jed Rubenfeld
Michigan Law Review
To get right to the point: Mr. Hacker does not disagree that the Establishment Clause would, in the absence of the Fourteenth Amendment, have prohibited Congress from passing a nationwide religion law like RFRA. He believes, however, that the Fourteenth Amendment has in part repealed the First. Of course, he doesn't want to say repealed. The language of repeal is not pleasant to the ears of those who would like to forget about First Amendment antidisestablishmentarianism. The Fourteenth Amendment did not "repeal any aspect of the text of the [Establishment] Clause," Hacker says, but only "change[d] profoundly the meaning of …
Irreconcilable Differences? Divorcing Regugee Protections From Human Rights Norms, Karen Musalo
Irreconcilable Differences? Divorcing Regugee Protections From Human Rights Norms, Karen Musalo
Michigan Journal of International Law
This article will discuss in greater detail the profound defects of the Court's Zacarias decision. Section I will discuss the interpretation of key provisions of the 1980 Refugee Act, and describe the case of Jairo Elias Zacarias. Section II will review the plain language and legislative intent of the Act, including the congressional purpose of conforming to the 1967 Protocol. Section III will consider issues of burden of proof, and will examine the substantive impact which Zacarias has had on refugee cases. Section IV will focus on religious persecution as a paradigm of the inadequacy of an intent-based requirement and …
Structural Free Exercise, Mary Ann Glendon, Raul F. Yanes
Structural Free Exercise, Mary Ann Glendon, Raul F. Yanes
Michigan Law Review
In Part I of this article, we analyze the development of case law interpreting the religious freedom language of the First Amendment from the 1940s to the eve of the rights revolution as a casualty of the piecemeal approach to incorporation, compounded by a series of judicial lapses and oversights. Part II deals with the fate of the Religion Clause in the era of the rights revolution, when the free exercise and establishment provisions were deployed in the service of a constitutional agenda to which they were, in themselves, largely peripheral. The current period of doctrinal change is the subject …
Religion And The Burger Court, Rex E. Lee
Religion And The Burger Court, Rex E. Lee
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Religion, State and the Burger Court by Leo Pfeffer
The Walz Decision: More On The Religion Clauses Of The First Amendment, Paul G. Kauper
The Walz Decision: More On The Religion Clauses Of The First Amendment, Paul G. Kauper
Michigan Law Review
The principal thrust of this Article is to determine the contribution made by the Walz decision to the body of ideas that has been developed by the Court in its application of the interdependent free exercise and establishment limitations of the first amendment, to point up any distinctively new emphases, and to suggest the implications of these new ideas and emphases for important cases coming before the Court at its 1970-1971 term.
The Warren Court: Religious Liberty And Church-State Relations, Paul G. Kauper
The Warren Court: Religious Liberty And Church-State Relations, Paul G. Kauper
Michigan Law Review
The purpose of this Article is to analyze the holdings of the Warren Court under these two clauses in an attempt to assess their significance by reference both to earlier interpretations and to the direction they may give to future development.