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A Defining Faith: "True" Religion And The Establishment Clause, Jeffrey Shulman
A Defining Faith: "True" Religion And The Establishment Clause, Jeffrey Shulman
ExpressO
This essay examines two trends in modern church-state law. Parts I and II review the history of the Supreme Court's Establishment Clause cases. It is a history that can best be understood as a series of jurisprudential maneuvers by which the Court has sought to make room for religion in civic life. The accommodations made by the Court to religious belief and conduct have, in effect, allowed for discrimination against non-religion, and have edged the court toward a nonpreferentialist perspective on disestablishment. But the Court’s accommodating attitude amounts to more than a preference for the many varieties of religious experience. …
Secularism's Laws: State Blaine Amendments And Religious Persecution, Kyle Duncan
Secularism's Laws: State Blaine Amendments And Religious Persecution, Kyle Duncan
ExpressO
The State Blaine Amendments are provisions in thirty-seven state constitutions that restrict persons’ and organizations’ access to public benefits on religious grounds. They arose largely in the mid- to late-1800s in response to bitter strife between an established Protestant majority and a growing Catholic minority that sought equal access to public funding for Catholic schools. After the failure to pass a federal constitutional amendment—the "Blaine Amendment"—that would have sealed off public school funds from "sectarian" institutions, similar provisions proliferated in state constitutions. These "State Blaines" have often been interpreted, under their plain terms, as erecting religion-sensitive barriers to the flow …