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A Century of Religious Freedom |
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| The Religion Clauses of the First Amendment direct the separation of church and state and protect the free exercise of religion. Despite their position at the very beginning of the Bill of Rights, the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses only attained their modern meaning within roughly the last half of the twentieth century. For much of that time, the Supreme Court's approach to the Free Exercise Clause was exemplified by the cases of Sherbert v. Verner and Wisconsin v. Yoder, while the Establishment Clause was implemented through the multipart test articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman. A principled reading of these two areas of case law revealed a tension between accommodations required under the first and limitations on government action imposed by the second. In recent years, the Court has substantially revised its approach to nearly all facets of the Religion Clauses, but the resulting body of law is highly unstable. Nevertheless, some general themes are apparent, including the rise of a position of "neutrality" towards religion and a general approach that appears less separationist and more accommodating of mainstream religions. | |
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Copyright
© 2000 by California Law Review, Inc. |
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