Opinion ID: 1741615
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Distinguishing Between Real Threat and Mere Shadow in This Case

Text: One thing is obvious in this case. The trial court applied the three-pronged test articulated in Lemon, the test the judges in Constangy and Harvey used. Consequently, the determination of the continued viability of the Lemon test would shed considerable light on the difficult issues presented in this case. A key factor in that determination is an analysis of how Rosenberger affects the Lemon test. Legal scholars have expressed their views, and typical of some of their comments are those in the introduction to an article entitled The Supreme Court's Jurisprudence of Religious Symbol and Substance, by David L. Gregory and Charles J. Russo in 28 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 419 (1997): During the closing weeks of the 1994-1995 Term, the United States Supreme Court issued Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the University of Virginia and Capitol Square Review & Advisory Board v. Pinette , two decisions that further obfuscated the parameters of both free exercise and establishment of religion. In these opinions, the Court again failed to articulate clear guidelines for the many aspects of religious activity in the public arena. The decisions present the nation with the very difficult perhaps impossible task of effectively balancing potentially conflicting constitutional principles. More specifically, the cases raise the trying question of to what extent, if any, the government can regulate religious speech without violating the First Amendment Free Exercise and/or Establishment Clauses by aiding, advancing, or suppressing a particular religious perspective. [26] Professor Laura Underkuffler-Freund, in an excellent article entitled The Separation of the Religious and the Secular: A Foundational Challenge to First Amendment Theory, 36 Wm. & Mary L.Rev. 837 (1995), presents an analysis of the evolution of the First Amendment that I find very persuasive. Her central premise is that, when the First Amendment was ratified, protecting freedom of conscience was to be its primary purpose. She notes that religious establishments by government were seen as potentially corrupting... to individuals, who would be forced to act in ways contrary to the dictates of conscience in order to obtain public power or benefits. Id. at 961. She states that the framers made sure that the protection of conscience was imperative. Id. at 891. She writes: Of all the `fundamental rights' heralded during the Founding Era, calls for freedom of conscience were the most insistent and the most intense. [27] In her article, Professor Underkuffler-Freund questions the practice of attempting to draw a line of demarcation between the religious and the secular, in individual and collective life, and the attempt to use this line of demarcation as the foundational principle for First Amendment religious guarantees. She proposes, therefore, that a useful framework within which to analyze First Amendment establishment and free exercise issues is the application of what she terms a historical approach. That approach would recognize that the operational principle in such cases is the protection of individual conscience. It appears to me that Professor Underkuffler-Freund's approach of recognizing that the religious and the secular can never be divided into separate spheres has merit and that Rosenberger indicates that the Supreme Court, as some suggest, may be shifting its Establishment Clause jurisprudence to apply an analysis that closely parallels the analysis Professor Underkuffler-Freund suggests. I note that the argument has been presented to this Court that the Fourteenth Amendment, which is applicable to the States, did not fully incorporate in its concept of due process the principles of the Establishment Clause, and, therefore, that the Establishment Clause does not apply to the States to the same extent as to the Federal Government, but I do not address this argument. [28]