Source: https://thetruthsource.org/justice-rehnquists-dissent-against-the-wall-in-separation-of-church-and-state/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:03:41+00:00

Document:
…since Everson our Establishment Clause cases have been neither principled nor unified. Our recent opinions, many of them hopelessly divided pluralities, have with embarrassing candor conceded that the “wall of separation” is merely a “blurred, indistinct, and variable barrier,” which “is not wholly accurate” and can only be “dimly perceived.” Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602… (1971); Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672… (1971); Wolman v. Walter, 433 U.S. 229 (1977); Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668… (1984).
Whether due to its lack of historical support or its practical unworkability, the Everson “wall” has proved all but useless as a guide to sound constitutional adjudication. It illustrates only too well the wisdom of Benjamin Cardozo’s observation that “metaphors in law are to be narrowly watched, for starting as devices to liberate thought; they end often by enslaving it.” Berkey v. Third Avenue R. Co., 244 N.Y. 84… (1926).
But the greatest injury of the “wall” notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intentions of the drafters of the Bill of Rights. The “crucible of litigation,” ante, at 2487, is well adapted to adjudicating factual disputes on the basis of testimony presented in court, but no amount of repetition of historical errors in judicial opinions can make the errors true. The “wall of separation between church and State” is a metaphor based on bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned.
The Court has more recently attempted to add some mortar to Everson‘s wall through the three-part test of Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, 403 U.S., at 614-615, 91 S.Ct., at 2112, which served at first to offer a more useful test for purposes of the Establishment Clause than did the “wall” metaphor. Generally stated, the Lemon test proscribes state action that has a sectarian purpose or effect, or causes an impermissible governmental entanglement with religion.
Lemon cited Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236… (1968), as the source of the “purpose” and “effect” prongs of the three-part test. The Allen opinion explains, however, how it inherited the purpose and effect elements from Schempp and Everson, both of which contain the historical errors described above. See Allen, supra, at 243, 88 S.Ct., at 1926. Thus the purpose and effect prongs have the same historical deficiencies as the wall concept itself: they are in no way based on either the language or intent of the drafters.
However, if the purpose prong is aimed to void all statutes enacted with the intent to aid sectarian institutions, whether stated or not, then most statutes providing any aid, such as textbooks or bus rides for sectarian school children, will fail because one of the purposes behind every statute, whether stated or not, is to aid the target of its largesse. In other words, if the purpose prong requires an absence of any intent to aid sectarian institutions, whether or not expressed, few state laws in this area could pass the test, and we would be required to void some state aids to religion which we have already upheld. E.g., Allen, supra.
We have not always followed Walz‘s reflective inquiry into entanglement, however. E.g., Wolman, supra, 433 U.S., at 254, 97 S.Ct., at 2608. One of the difficulties with the entanglement prong is that, when divorced from the logic of Walz, it creates an “insoluable paradox” in school aid cases: we have required aid to parochial schools to be closely watched lest it be put to sectarian use, yet this close supervision itself will create an entanglement. Roemer v. Maryland Bd. of Public Works, 426 U.S. 736… (1976) (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment). For example, in Wolman, supra, the Court in part struck the State’s nondiscriminatory provision of buses for parochial school field trips, because the state supervision of sectarian officials in charge of field trips would be too onerous. This type of self-defeating result is certainly not required to ensure that States do not establish religions.
For example, a State may lend to parochial school children geography textbooks(7)that contain maps of the United States, but the State may not lend maps of the United States for use in geography class.(8) A State may lend textbooks on American colonial history, but it may not lend a film on George Washington, or a film projector to show it in history class. A State may lend classroom workbooks, but may not lend workbooks in which the parochial school children write, thus rendering them nonreusable.(9) A State may pay for bus transportation to religious schools(10)but may not pay for bus transportation from the parochial school to the public zoo or natural history museum for a field trip.(11) A State may pay for diagnostic services conducted in the parochial school but therapeutic services must be given in a different building; speech and hearing “services” conducted by the State inside the sectarian school are forbidden, Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349, 367, 371, 95 S.Ct. 1753, 1764, 1766, 49 L.Ed.2d 179 (1975), but the State may conduct speech and hearing diagnostic testing inside the sectarian school. Wolman, 433 U.S., at 241, 97 S.Ct., at 2602. Exceptional parochial school students may receive counseling, but it must take place outside of the parochial school,(12)such as in a trailer parked down the street. Id., at 245, 97 S.Ct., at 2604. A State may give cash to a parochial school to pay for the administration of state-written tests and state-ordered reporting services,(13)but it may not provide funds for teacher-prepared tests on secular subjects.(14) Religious instruction may not be given in public school,(15)but the public school may release students during the day for religion classes elsewhere, and may enforce attendance at those classes with its truancy laws.
These results violate the historically sound principle “that the Establishment Clause does not forbid governments . . . to [provide] general welfare under which benefits are distributed to private individuals, even though many of those individuals may elect to use those benefits in ways that ‘aid’ religious instruction or worship.” Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 799, 93 S.Ct. 2955, 2989, 37 L.Ed.2d 948 (1973) (BURGER, C.J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). It is not surprising in the light of this record that our most recent opinions have expressed doubt on the usefulness of the Lemon test.
Although the test initially provided helpful assistance, e.g., Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672, 91 S.Ct. 2091, 29 L.Ed.2d 790 (1971), we soon began describing the test as only a “guideline,” Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, supra, and lately we have described it as “no more than [a] useful signpos[t].” Mueller v. Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 394, 103 S.Ct. 3062, 3066, 77 L.Ed.2d 721 (1983), citing Hunt v. McNair, 413 U.S. 734, 741, 93 S.Ct. 2868, 2873, 37 L.Ed.2d 923 (1973); Larkin v. Grendel’s Den, Inc., 459 U.S. 116, 103 S.Ct. 505, 74 L.Ed.2d 297 (1982). We have noted that the Lemon test is “not easily applied,” Meek, supra, 421 U.S., at 358, 95 S.Ct., at 1759, and as Justice WHITE noted in Committee for Public Education v. Regan, 444 U.S. 646, 100 S.Ct. 840, 63 L.Ed.2d 94 (1980), under the Lemon test we have “sacrifice[d] clarity and predictability for flexibility.” 444 U.S., at 662, 100 S.Ct., at 851. In Lynch we reiterated that the Lemon test has never been binding on the Court, and we cited two cases where we had declined to apply it. 465 U.S., at 679, 104 S.Ct., at 1362, citing Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 103 S.Ct. 3330, 77 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983); Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228, 102 S.Ct. 1673, 72 L.Ed.2d 33 (1982).
If a constitutional theory has no basis in the history of the amendment it seeks to interpret, is difficult to apply and yields unprincipled results, I see little use in it. The “crucible of litigation,” ante, at 2487, has produced only consistent unpredictability, and today’s effort is just a continuation of “the sisyphean task of trying to patch together the ‘blurred, indistinct and variable barrier’ described in Lemon v. Kurtzman.” Regan, supra, 444 U.S., at 671, 100 S.Ct., at 855 (STEVENS, J., dissenting). We have done much straining since 1947, but still we admit that we can only “dimly perceive” the Everson wall. Tilton, supra. Our perception has been clouded not by the Constitution but by the mists of an unnecessary metaphor.
The true meaning of the Establishment Clause can only be seen in its history. See Walz, 397 U.S., at 671-673, 90 S.Ct., at 1412-1413; see also Lynch, supra, at 673-678, 104 S.Ct., at 1359-1362. As drafters of our Bill of Rights, the Framers inscribed the principles that control today. Any deviation from their intentions frustrates the permanence of that Charter and will only lead to the type of unprincipled decision-making that has plagued our Establishment Clause cases since Everson.
The Court strikes down the Alabama statute because the State wished to “characterize prayer as a favored practice.” Ante, at 2492. It would come as much of a shock to those who drafted the Bill of Rights as it will to a large number of thoughtful Americans today to learn that the Constitution, as construed by the majority, prohibits the Alabama Legislature from “endorsing” prayer. George Washington himself, at the request of the very Congress which passed the Bill of Rights, proclaimed a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.” History must judge whether it was the Father of his Country in 1789, or a majority of the Court today, which has strayed from the meaning of the Establishment Clause.
The State surely has a secular interest in regulating the manner in which public schools are conducted. Nothing in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, properly understood, prohibits any such generalized “endorsement” of prayer. I would therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
Reynoldsis the only authority cited as direct precedent for the “wall of separation theory.” 330 U.S., at 16, 67 S.Ct., at 512. Reynolds is truly inapt; it dealt with a Mormon’s Free Exercise Clause challenge to a federal polygamy law.
In a letter he sent to Jefferson in France, Madison stated that he did not see much importance in a Bill of Rights but he planned to support it because it was “anxiously desired by others . . . [and] it might be of use, and if properly executed could not be of disservice.” 5 Writings of James Madison, 271 (G. Hunt ed. 1904).
State establishments were prevalent throughout the late 18thand early 19th centuries. See Mass. Const. of 1780, Part 1, Art. III; N. H. Const. of 1784, Art. VI; Md. Declaration of Rights of 1776, Art. XXXIII; R. I. Charter of 1633 (superseded 1842).
From 1789 to 1823 the United States Congress had provided a trust endowment of up to 12,000 acres of land “for the Society of the United Brethren, for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen.” See, e.g., ch. 46, 1 Stat. 490. The Act creating this endowment was renewed periodically and the renewals were signed into law by Washington, Adams, and Jefferson.
Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672, 677, 91 S.Ct. 2091, 2095, 29 L.Ed.2d 790 (1971); Meek v. Pittenger, 421 U.S. 349, 95 S.Ct. 1753, 44 L.Ed.2d 217 (1975) (partial); Roemer v. Maryland Bd. of Public Works, 426 U.S. 736, 96 S.Ct. 2337, 49 L.Ed.2d 179 (1976); Wolman v. Walter, 433 U.S. 229, 97 S.Ct. 2593, 53 L.Ed.2d 714 (1977).

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