Third Chapter 5 Post - The Establishment Clause

     The first amendment is part of the Bill of Rights that imposes a number of restrictions on the federal government with respect to civil liberties, including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. The aspect of the first amendment I want to focus on in this post is the freedom of religion, and more specifically the establishment clause. Dating back to the 1700's, the Framers of the Constitution disliked a national church or religion, which was reflected in the Constitution. For example, Article IV states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or Public Trust under the United States."

     The First Amendment to the Constitution begins, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." From here, the First Amendment talks about two major clauses, the establishment clause, and the free exercise clause. The establishment clause directs the national government not to sanction an official religion, while the free exercise clause guarantees citizens that the national government will not interfere with their practice of religion. These two clauses have been part of numerous controversial cases through the course of U.S. history.

     The separation of church and state has always been a touchy issue for American politics. Over the years, the Supreme Court has has been split over how to interpret the establishment clause. Some people feel that the clause creates a wall between church and state while others feel that there should be some government intervention allowed for religion. For the most part, the Court has held strong to a strict separation between church and state when it comes to issues of mandatory prayer in school. For example, in Abington School Dsitrict v. Schempp, the Court ruled that state-mandated Bible reading or recitation of the Lord's Prayer in public schools was unconstitutional.

     Another issue involving the freedom of religion and the establishment clause involves coming up with a method to deal with church and state questions. The lemon test, which was created due to the Lemon v. Kurtzman case, is a three-part test for laws dealing with religious establishment issues. The test states that a policy was constitutional if it had the following three aspects:

1. It had a legitimate secular purpose.
2. It neither advanced nor inhibited religion.
3. It did not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion.

     However, the Supreme Court has often avoided the Lemon test altogether as long as school prayer wasn't involved. Overall, as time went on, the Supreme Court has gotten a bit more lenient when it comes to lowering the wall separating church and state. In my opinion, I feel that the establishment clause and all the resulting court cases and rulings that have come from this issue have been pretty good for this country. Sure, there have been conflicts and disagreements that have risen throughout, but without these conflicts, the United States as a whole wouldn't have been able to push through them and grow as a nation in order to provide as much freedom as possible for the citizens guaranteed in the Constitution.