Abstract
Much that Professor Mark Weiner has said about the role of religion in the United States, the role of the Supreme Court in attempting to enforce an ideal of neutrality in matters between church and state, and how those two forces greatly influence American society resonates well in the American populace and psyche. Church-state issues are among the most important, and divisive, in American society, a pivotal matter over what it means to be an American. Professor Weiner has offered a nice portrait of this part of Americana. I want to offer some perspectives on Professor Weiner’s comments.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Edward Eberle, Dignity and Liberty: Constitutional Visions in Germany and the United States (2002).
With the incorporation of the Establishment Clause into the fourteenth amendment, which extended its reach against state actions, it is more appropriate to speak of ‘government’, and not the First Amendment’s chosen word of “Congress,” as the object of the Clause, see Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947). My comments relate only to the post-incorporation period of the Establishment Clause, where the Supreme Court is the main source of Establishment Clause values, not state government, as had been the case before the incorporation of the Establishment Clause.
The Free Exercise Clause was incorporated into the fourteenth amendment and made applicable against the states in Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940).
“The Free Exercise Clause embraces a freedom of conscience and worship that has close parallels in the speech provisions of the First Amendment, but the Establishment Clause is a specific prohibition on forms of state intervention in religious affairs with no precise counterpart in the speech provisions.” Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 591 (1992).
Van Orden v. Perry, 2005 WL 1500276 (June 27, 2005).
McCreary County, Kentucky v. ACLU, 2005 WL 1498988 (June 27, 2005).
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947).
Edward Eberle, Roger Williams’s Gift: Religious Liberty in America, Roger Williams L. Rev. 4 (1999), 425, 427.
John Witte, Jr., The Essential Rights and Liberties of Religion in the American Constitutional Experiment, Notre Dame L. Rev. 71 (1996), 371.
Everson; and Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 164 (1879).
Edward Eberle, Another of Roger Williams’s Gifts: Women’s Right to Liberty of Conscience: Joshua Verin v. Providence Plantations, Roger Williams L. Rev. 9 (2004), 399.
See Witte, Jr., note 11 above.
Id.
Zorach v. Clausen, 343 U.S. 306, 313 (1952): “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being”.
McCreary County, Kentucky v. ACLU, 2005 WL 1498988, Justice Scalia dissenting: “What, then, could be the genuine ‘good reason’ for occasionally ignoring the neutrality principle? I suggest it is the instinct for self-preservation, and the recognition that the Court, which ‘has no influence over either the sword or the purse’, The Federalist No. 78... cannot go too far down the road of an enforced neutrality that contradicts both historical fact and current practice without losing all that sustains it: the willingness of the people to accept its interpretation of the Constitution as definitive, in preference to the contrary interpretation of the democratically elected branches”.
New York Times, Texan with Bench Experience Wades Into Judicial Fray, July 17, 2005, at page A 11 (Senator John Cornyn, Texas-Republican).
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002).
Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388 (1983).
Zelman; Mueller; and Witters v. Washington Dept of Services for Blind, 474 U.S. 481 (1986).
Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203 (1997).
Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U.S. 793 (2000).
E. g. Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, 509 U.S. 1 (1993), sign interpreter.
Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000), no grand parental right to visit grandchild; and Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 707 (1997), no right to die.
Department of Human Services (Oregon) v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e.V., to be exercised by Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Eberle, E.J. (2007). A Comment on Mark Weiner’s “Neutrality Between Church and State: Mission Impossible”. In: Brugger, W., Karayanni, M. (eds) Religion in the Public Sphere: A Comparative Analysis of German, Israeli, American and International Law. Beiträge zum ausländischen öffentlichen Recht und Völkerrecht, vol 190. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73357-7_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73357-7_14
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-73355-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-73357-7
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawLaw and Criminology (R0)