There are a plethora of reasons as to why the nation of America was founded. One chief reason was to promote religious tolerance and religious freedoms, something that was not allowed in England. Many of the colonies, like Roger Penn’s Pennsylvania, were founded exclusively to protect specific religious groups. To safeguard potential threats to the religious freedoms of the colonists, the Establishment Clause was written into the First Amendment. The writing of the Establishment Clause helped guarantee that the government would not establish an official religion. The worry of state-endorsed religion stems from America’s British heritage. Groups like the Puritans came to America due to religious persecution, the clause showed that religious freedom would be crucial to the nation Thomas Jefferson, a major proponent of the clause, believed that without the Establishment Clause, America would revert back to Anglicanism.
The clause explicitly states, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”l Since the end of World War Two, multiple cases regarding the Establishment Clause have been brought forth to the Supreme Court, Over time, the Court has held two basic views in regards to the interpretation of the clause. Although the Court has not made radically different decisions about the Establishment Clause, the Court’s decisions have been increasingly supporting the conservative political ideology as evidenced by the closeness of votes of the justices, The Establishment Clause can be viewed in two primary ways. The first interpretation of the Establishment Clause is the literalist view, which is also referred to as the separationist approach. Separationists believe that the First Amendment effectively created “a wall of WNH separation between Church and state,“ Separationists generally hold the belief that the practice of religion should be relegated to a private and voluntary sector of society.
The second view of the Clause is a very loose or elastic interpretation People who hold this view, like Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia, believe that the Establishment Clause is only violated if the government directly sponsors a religion.a Justices who hold the elastic approach also have a tendency to believe that secularism itself is considered a religion; this concept has made recent Court rulings very close, often resulting in a 5-4 decisions7 Prior to the Incorporation Doctrine, brought about by Barron v, Baltimore, which mandated that the Bill of Rights applied to state and local governments, the Court rarely enforced the Establishment Clause. This neglect of the clause is even shown in historical documents, such as the Northwest Ordinance of 1787i The Ordinance features a line that states that religion is key to successful governance.n To reinforce this perspective, Justice William, douglas claimed that America is composed of “a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.”‘
The Court began enforcing the Establishment Clause in the early nineteen seventies, slowly applying a separationist viewpoint. Out of all the Supreme court justices, the most reliable separationist vote was that of John Paul Stevens Appointed during the Ford administration, the conservative Stevens became a champion of the separationist cause. Upon his decision to leave the bench, Stevens’ votes became increasingly liberal and constantly voted to uphold the Establishment Clause in every decision he faced. However, few Justices help the separationist approach after Stevens’ appointment to the Court Justices who identify themselves as conservative generally tend to find that a law is unconstitutional if the government literally establishes a religion.“ The first significant case involving the Establishment Clause was Lemon \L Kurtzman. The case featured an argument about the allocation of state funding to “church-related educational institutions.”‘
The Court, led by Chief Justice Warren Burger, voted 8-0 for Lemon, citing that the Rhode Island law was unconstitutional and did not follow the Establishment Clause From the decision, the “Lemon Test” was established. The Lemon test has morphed into the current method as to how to decide if a law has violated the Establishment Clause. To be a constitutional law, the law must explicitly contain “a secular legislative purpose“ in addition to prohibiting “an excessive government entanglement with religion.”” Another important Supreme Court regarding the Establishment Clause was Stone M Graham. The case was about a Kentucky law that mandated that public schools contain a copy of the Ten Commandments Stone proceeded to sue on the grounds that the act promoted a state sponsorship of religion and violated the Establishment Clause, Following the precedent set in Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Court voted 5-2 in favor of Stone.“ The Court stated that the Kentucky law “had no secular legislative purpose” and was viewed as “plainly religious in nature.“
Due to the increased polarization of religion in America, multiple cases pertaining to the Establishment Clause have been presented to the Court in the current century. One of these cases was Doe v. Santa Fe School District. The case dealt with the issue if an overtly Protestant prayer violated the Establishment Clause even though the prayer was student-initiated. In a relatively surprising decision, the Court voted 6-3 in favor of Doe, with Justice Stevens writing the majority opinion,‘6 Stevens controversially claimed that prayers at the game were “public speech authorized by a governmental policy taking place on government property.” In his dissenting opinion, Chief Justice William Rehnquist stated that the ruling was “disturbing” and promoted “hostility to all things religious in public life.”
Over time, the Court has allowed for the Establishment Clause to be interpreted to allow for more religious expression and has aligned the rulings with the general Republican platformlg This is partially due to the ideologies of Justices Scalia and Thomas, two anchors for the Republican Party To highlight this changing ideology on the Supreme Court, one can easily see the evidence in a recent case. In Van Orden v, Perry, the constitutionality of a Ten Commandments monument by the Texas State Capitol building was debated. shockingly, the Court voted 5-4 in Perry‘s favor, which meant the monument was allowed to remain. The Court claimed, “Simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause?“
Justice Stevens issued a powerful dissenting opinion and believed that the “wholesome neutrality” the Court previously experienced was eroding. In conclusion, it is very easy to detect the changing ideology of the Supreme Court in regards to the Establishment Clause. What started as a fairly liberal panel of Justices eventually morphed into a conservative Court. One can make the argument that Justice Stevens was the only Justice who sought to uphold the Clause in every case presented before him. Since Steven’s resignation, there is great speculation in legal circles that newly appointed Justices Elena Kagan and Sonya Sotomayor will fulfill the role Stevens once held.
