Opinion ID: 887107
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Separation

Text: ¶ 63 The primary purpose of the Establishment Clause is to separate government from religion. Separation seeks to ensure that government and religion each operate freely in their own separate spheres, uninhibited by regulation or control by the other. Frederick Gedicks, A Two-Track Theory of the Establishment Clause, 43 Boston College Law Rev. 1071, 1072 (2002). The concept of separation is perhaps best illustrated by the school prayer cases, Engel v. Vitale (1962), 370 U.S. 421, 82 S.Ct. 1261, 8 L.Ed.2d 601, and School Dist. v. Schempp (1963), 374 U.S. 203, 83 S.Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d 844. In Engel, the United States Supreme Court struck down New York's state-approved prayer which was required to be recited daily in public schools. The Court stated that [t]he Establishment Clause ... stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its `unhallowed perversion' by a civil magistrate. Engel, 370 U.S. at 431-32, 82 S.Ct. at 1267, 8 L.Ed.2d at 608. The next year, the Court in Schempp invalidated actions by Pennsylvania and the City of Baltimore, Maryland, which required the public schools to begin each day with a Bible reading, holding: The place of religion in our society is an exalted one, achieved through a long tradition of reliance on the home, the church and the inviolable citadel of the individual heart and mind. We have come to recognize through bitter experience that it is not within the power of government to invade that citadel, whether its purpose or effect be to aid or oppose, to advance or retard. Schempp, 374 U.S. at 226, 83 S.Ct. at 1573-74, 10 L.Ed.2d at 860-61. ¶ 64 Thus, religious belief and doctrine are subjects with which the government may not engage, whether to advance or diminish.