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Radically Subversive Speech And The Authority Of Law, Steven D. Smith Nov 1995

Radically Subversive Speech And The Authority Of Law, Steven D. Smith

Michigan Law Review

This essay attempts to use a familiar, relatively concrete constitutional question to think about a familiar, relatively abstract jurisprudential question - and vice versa. The constitutional question asks why we should give legal protection to what I will call "radically subversive speech." The jurisprudential question concerns the ancient problem of the legitimacy or authority of law in general. "What is law," as Philip Soper puts the question, "that I should obey it?" I will try in this essay to show that the abstract question sheds light on the more concrete one - and vice versa.

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A Coherent Methodology For First Amendment Speech And Religion Clause Cases, Thomas R. Mccoy Oct 1995

A Coherent Methodology For First Amendment Speech And Religion Clause Cases, Thomas R. Mccoy

Vanderbilt Law Review

It seems clear that any deliberate effort by government to impose religious orthodoxy will be held unconstitutional per se. A religiously motivated restriction on disfavored religious practices will be held to violate the Free Exercise Clause. Similarly, a religiously motivated attempt to promote or subsidize favored religious practices will be held to violate the Establishment Clause. These complimentary restrictions are now so ingrained in our political culture that the legislatures rarely transgress them.

The problem that has bedeviled the Supreme Court for many years is that government regulatory schemes and benefit programs designed to serve purely nonreligious objectives inevitably impact …

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Free Speech: The Status Of The First Amendment, Martin B. Margulies Jan 1995