Surely, one may devoutly hope, Justice Scalia exaggerates. In his dissent from Planned Parenthood v. Casey (joined by Rehnquist, Thomas, and White), he develops the analogy between this case and the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857. What happened then is, in ways . . . . Continue Reading »
June 17, 1948 Recent decisions of the Supreme Court have extended the meaning of the constitutional prohibition of an establishment of religion so that any action by the state that is intended to benefit all religious bodies without discrimination is forbidden. This development of the conception of . . . . Continue Reading »
Religion remains a divisive issue on the Supreme . . . . Continue Reading »
The history books tell us that Gavrilo Princip, the Serbian nationalist who shot and killed Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand in 1914 at Sarajevo, started World War I by providing the occasion, or excuse, for the release of long-smoldering political tensions and ambitions. Thus can small trickles . . . . Continue Reading »
A number of important questions touching on religion and public life were raised early on in connection with the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. One set of questions has to do with his Catholic background, the other with some public statements he has made regarding the role . . . . Continue Reading »
T he signers of this letter have been active for many years in both scholarship and litigation regarding religious liberty, and have close associations with many in the religious community who are now deciding whether to support the proposed Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Based on both our . . . . Continue Reading »
Richard John Neuhaus has joined the chorus of those singing a lament to the death of religious liberty (“Polygamy, Peyote, and the Public Peace,” October 1990). The cause of the choir’s mournful tune is the Supreme Court’s decision in the so-called peyote case, Employment Division v. . . . . Continue Reading »
No one should be surprised that decisions of great constitutional moment are sometimes occasioned by cases that seem trivial or exotic. Those who are threatened by the majority sentiment of the moment appeal to the Constitution, although not always successfully. There was, for instance, the 1879 . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1984 a federal court held the public schools of the Kansas City, Missouri, School District to be in systematic violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Both the district (KCD) and the State of Missouri had consciously worked to maintain racial segregation in the district's schools. The pupil . . . . Continue Reading »
It is doubtful that there is any substantial American consensus on what the flag symbolizes, because it is becoming hard to specify in what sense this increasingly heterogeneous country is a “nation.” . . . . Continue Reading »
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