Law Commons^™

Who Did In The Democrats?, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

An Introduction To The Pennsylvania State Constitution, Bruce Ledewitz

Ledewitz Papers

Published scholarship collected from academic journals, law reviews, newspaper publications & online periodicals

Establishment Clause Limits On Governmental Interference With Religious Organizations, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

In this article it will be argued that the establishment clause, properly viewed, functions as a structural provision regimenting the nature and degree of involvement between government and religious associations." The degree of involvement should be a limited one, although it is clear that the interrelationship need not nor cannot be eliminated altogether. Although the degree of desired separation has proven to be a continuing controversy, the goal of separation is not so divisive. The aim of separation of church and government is for each to give the other sufficient breathing space. The ordering principle is reciprocity in which "both …

Mueller V. Allen: A Fairer Approach To The Establishment Clause, Michael S. Ariens

Faculty Articles

The decision upheld by the United States Supreme Court in Mueller v. Allen helds a new dawn in establishment clause jurisprudence. This five-to-four decision, written for the majority by Justice Rehnquist, upheld a Minnesota statute permitting taxpayers to deduct the tuition, textbook, transportation, and instructional material expenses of their children when calculating their state tax liability. By this decision, the Court has cleared the way for an accommodation between church and state that more equitably recognizes the principles and values that the religion clauses were intended to protect.

Following a review of the history of the establishment clause, tuition tax …

Virginia Tax Laws Affecting Churches, J. Rodney Johnson

Law Faculty Publications

This is the second of two articles dealing with external church law in Virginia. The first article was a restatement of all Virginia laws relating to churches except for the tax laws. The subject of taxes was reserved for special treatment at that time because of the volume of tax-related materials. For the most part these materials consist of the various constitutional and statutory taxation provisions relating to religious charities and the opinions of the Virginia Attorney General interpreting and applying these provisions. Attorney General opinions take on a special importance in this study because there is only a handful …

Religion And A Neutral State: Imperative Or Impossibility?, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

The thesis of this Article is that the myth-of-neutrality argument is partially right and partially wrong. For reasons of religious liberty, the state can and should avoid any involvement with matters of religious worship, and the propagation or inculcation of matters that comprise the very heart of one's belief concerning the nature and destiny of mankind. Conversely, the state cannot retreat from the regulation of certain conduct which is arguably immoral and still claim its neutrality concerning the rightness of the conduct. The very decision by the state to withdraw its regulation, leaving the morality of the conduct up to …

Reinterpreting The Religion Clauses: Constitutional Construction And Conceptions Of The Self, Susan H. Williams

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The first amendment guarantees freedom from "law[s] respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The apparent tension between the two clauses of this provision has generated judicial confusion and scholarly disagreement. The perceived conflict between the religion clauses is the product of a particular understanding of what is most fundamental about human identity and the human situation - an understanding that derives from classical liberal political theory and that assumes a sharp division between the individual and his community. This Note proposes an alternative to the liberal conception of human identity, one that encompasses both the …