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Full-Text Articles in First Amendment
Assisted Suicide, Morality, And Law: Why Prohibiting Assisted Suicide Violates The Establishment Clause, Edward Rubin
Assisted Suicide, Morality, And Law: Why Prohibiting Assisted Suicide Violates The Establishment Clause, Edward Rubin
Vanderbilt Law Review
This Article argues that general prohibitions against assisted suicide violate the Establishment Clause because they support a particular and religiously based moral position. Many laws overlap with religious proscriptions, of course. The conclusion that laws against assisted suicide are unconstitutional because of their religious origin is based on the specific historical context of these laws within our existing culture. Over the course of Western civilization, attitudes about suicide have oscillated from positive approbation in many Greek and Roman sources, to outright and unalterable opposition by Christian writers, to acceptance and limited approval by contemporary secular thinkers and health practitioners. At …
Changing The Rules Of Establishment Clause Litigation: An Alternative To The Public Expression Of Religion Act, Christopher D. Tomlinson
Changing The Rules Of Establishment Clause Litigation: An Alternative To The Public Expression Of Religion Act, Christopher D. Tomlinson
Vanderbilt Law Review
In 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU") threatened to sue the city of Redlands, California, if it did not remove a small cross from its city seal.' The cross represented the city's religious heritage and its history as a city of churches. Instead of facing the possibility of litigation and the more daunting risk of losing in court and being forced to pay the ACLU's attorneys' fees in addition to its own, the Redlands City Council agreed to change the seal. The City of Redlands not only could ill afford the risk of paying the ACLU's attorneys' fees; it …
Unincorporated, Unprotected: Religion In An Established State, Kathryn E. Komp
Unincorporated, Unprotected: Religion In An Established State, Kathryn E. Komp
Vanderbilt Law Review
In the summer of 2004, the group American Veterans Standing for God and Country ("American Veterans") began a cross-country pilgrimage to carry a 5,200-pound statue of the Ten Commandments to Washington D.C. The infamous statue cost Roy Moore his job as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court when he refused to remove it from the lobby of the state courthouse in 2002. American Veterans took up Moore's cause, however, and in October they brought the Commandments statue to a Christian rally in Washington, D.C. The group then planned to ask Congress to display the statue permanently in the Capitol …
The Lemon Test Soured: The Supreme Court's New Establishment Clause Analysis, Kenneth M. Cox
The Lemon Test Soured: The Supreme Court's New Establishment Clause Analysis, Kenneth M. Cox
Vanderbilt Law Review
This Recent Development argues that the Court's apparent trend toward basing establishment clause analysis on the pervasiveness or historical significance of government-supported religious activities represents an undesirable move away from strict examination of the questionable law or activity under the Lemon test. Part II briefly examines the theoretical bases of the establishment clause, then traces the Court's applications of each element of the Lemon analysis. Part III discusses the Marsh and Lynch decisions as the most recent Supreme Court additions to establishment clause doctrine. Finally, part IV analyzes two major effects of these decisions: first, the emergence of the historical …
Religion And The Public Schools, P. Raymond Bartholomew
Religion And The Public Schools, P. Raymond Bartholomew
Vanderbilt Law Review
The first amendment to the United States Constitution contains a dual command with respect to governmental involvement with religion: government must "make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Although some have insisted that the first amendment requires a strict separation of church and state, the conclusion is inescapable that the two clauses were intended to operate together in harmony. It is apparent, therefore, that the conflicting policies of the "no establishment" clause and the "free exercise" clause must be balanced and reconciled. The United States Supreme Court has held that this balancing effort …