Source: http://uscivilliberties.org/themes/3761-establishment-clause-theories-of-interpretation.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 00:39:14+00:00

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The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution provides that ‘‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .’’ The aim of the Establishment Clause is to keep the government neutral in matters of religion (Epperson v. Arkansas , McCreary County v. ACLU ). The Supreme Court has used a number of different approaches to determine whether a government action has departed from the neutrality principle and unconstitutionally established religion.
The Court has most often used the Lemon test, a three-prong test announced in Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971). More recently, however, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has moved the Court towards more frequent use of the ‘‘endorsement test.’’ See, for instance, Lynch v. Donnelly (1983) (O’Connor, J., concurring), County of Allegheny v. ACLU (1989) (O’Connor, J., concurring), and Santa Fe Ind. Sch. Dist. v. Doe (2000). Still another test that has gained some currency on the Court is the ‘‘coercion test’’ articulated by Justice Anthony Kennedy. See Allegheny (Kennedy, J., dissenting in part). In light of the Court’s turbulent approach in this area, as well as changes in the Court’s membership, it is reasonable to characterize the Establishment Clause as an area in transition.
When applying the Lemon test, courts will find no establishment of religion if the government action (1) has a secular legislative purpose, (2) does not have the effect of advancing or prohibiting religion, and (3) does ‘‘not foster ‘an excessive entanglement with religion’’’ (Lemon [internal citations omitted]).
The entanglement prong of the Lemon test is focused primarily on government spending that supports religion and the resulting government intrusion into religious organizations. In Lemon itself, the policies of two states to spend tax dollars to support religious schools were found unconstitutional because of excessive entanglement. To determine if the entanglement between government and religion is excessive, the Court looks at ‘‘the character and purposes of the institutions that are benefited, the nature of the aid that the State provides, and the resulting relationship between the government and the religious authority.’’ Because of the intrusive government oversight necessary to administer financial aid, the Court in Lemon found excessive entanglement in the states’ laws. A similar monetary and oversight analysis for the entanglement prong was applied to a Texas sales tax exemption for religious publications in Texas Monthly v. Bullock (1989). The statute required that applicants for the exemption prove to government officials that their ‘‘message or activity is consistent with ‘the teaching of the faith.’’’ This entanglement could also lead to the perception that government has approved some religions and disapproved others (Bullock quoting United States v. Lee  [Stevens, J., concurring]). Where government action, especially concerning money, could result in intrusive oversight of religion, the Court has found excessive entanglement and an Establishment Clause violation.
Justice O’Connor’s theory of endorsement animates the majority opinions in Wallace, Allegheny, and Santa Fe. In Wallace, the majority framed the analysis of the purpose prong as ‘‘whether the government intends to convey a message of endorsement or disapproval of religion.’’ In Allegheny, the majority noted the recent trend in Court decisions of paying ‘‘close attention to whether the challenged governmental practice either has the purpose or effect of ‘endorsing’ religion.’’ Finally, in Santa Fe, the Court deemed school-sponsored religious speech ‘‘impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are nonadherants ‘that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherants that they are insiders, favored members of the political community’’’ (Santa Fe citing Lynch). While the Court still applies the Lemon framework in these cases, its analysis of the effects and purpose prong has been transformed by Justice O’Connor’s endorsement test. In most cases, the previously generalized inquiry into purpose and effect has been narrowed into a search for one particular purpose (to endorse) and one specific effect (endorsement).
Justice Kennedy has proposed a coercion test for Establishment Clause cases, and Justice Thomas has recently incorporated this idea into his own opinions (Allegheny [Kennedy, J., dissenting], Van Orden v. Perry  [Thomas, J., concurring]). Justice Kennedy suggested in Allegheny that actions should be invalidated only when they ‘‘further the interests of religion through the coercive power of government.’’ He suggested that coercion, rather than ‘‘infringement on religious liberty by passive or symbolic accommodation’’ is the evil that the Establishment Clause is designed to guard against. Justice Kennedy incorporated the coercion analysis in his opinion for the majority in Lee v. Weisman (1992). There, a public school graduation prayer led by a rabbi was found to violate the Establishment Clause. Kennedy held that ‘‘at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which ‘establishes a [state] religion or religious faith, or tends to do so’’’ (internal citations omitted). Because children were coerced to either participate in or protest a religious exercise, the school violated the Establishment Clause in Lee.
Justice Thomas has recently begun to advocate use of the coercion test as well. He argued in Van Orden that the original constitutional meaning of establishment was coercion. ‘‘The Framers understood an establishment ‘necessarily [to] involve actual legal coercion’’’ (Van Orden [Thomas, J., concurring] quoting Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow  [Thomas, J., concurring in the judgment]). Justice Thomas had argued in Newdow that ‘‘‘government practices that have nothing to do with creating or maintaining . . . coercive state establishments’ simply do not ‘implicate the possible liberty interest of being free from coercive state establishments’’’ (Van Orden quoting Newdow [Thomas, J., concurring]). While Justice Kennedy was the first member of the contemporary Court to propose use of the coercion test, he has not suggested that it be adopted to represent the full scope of the Establishment Clause’s reach. As his opinion in Lee intimated, he sees refraining from coercion as the ‘‘minimum’’ that is required of government. Justice Thomas, on the other hand, has opined that only coercive governmental measures can violate the Establishment Clause.
In light of these crosscurrents in the Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence, it is difficult to predict with any confidence which approach (if any) will come to dominate the Court’s analysis in the future. Because of her centrality in the development and application of the endorsement test, Justice O’Connor’s departure from the Court heightens this uncertainty. There are few, if any, signs of the emergence on the Court of a consistent, clear majority in favor of a single approach to deciding Establishment Clause cases.
Levy, Leonard W. The Establishment Clause: Religion and the First Amendment. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994.
McConnell, Michael W., Religious Freedom at a Crossroads, University of Chicago Law Review 59 (1992): 1:115–194.
Shiffrin, Steven H., The Pluralistic Foundations of the Religion Clauses, Cornell Law Review 90 (2004): 1:9–95.

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