Lemon V. Kurtzman
First Amendment: Lemon v. Kurtzman and the Freedom of Religion
Freedom of Religion is perhaps one of the greatest freedoms that the United States of America provides. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of are the first lines of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and comprise this Freedom of Religion. They read, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”1 This amendment goes on to articulate the freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly and the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The First Amendment is one of ten amendments in the Bill of Rights passed by our Founding Fathers in 1789. Thus, the significance and priority of the Freedom of Religion in the minds of the Founding Fathers is indubitably and simply manifest in its placement within the Bill of Rights. While extraordinarily important and preeminent, the Freedom of Religion is an exceptionally sensitive area of constitutional law. Specifically however, the Supreme Court case Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971 has had a tremendous impact on what lawfully constitutes an “establishment of religion”, and consequentially a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Court rational and affixation of the “Lemon tests” used to decide Lemon v. Kurtzman form significant precedent for subsequent court rulings and were a vital step to preserve the Freedom of Religion. Lemon v. Kurtzman was a Supreme Court case questioning the constitutionality of a Rhode Island statute and a Pennsylvania statute. Rhode Island’s 1969 Salary Supplement Act provided a fifteen percent supplement to the salaries of teachers in non-public schools at which the average money spent per-pupil was below the average in public schools. According to the statute, teachers eligible for this salary
Freedom of Religion is perhaps one of the greatest freedoms that the United States of America provides. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of are the first lines of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and comprise this Freedom of Religion. They read, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”1 This amendment goes on to articulate the freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly and the freedom to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The First Amendment is one of ten amendments in the Bill of Rights passed by our Founding Fathers in 1789. Thus, the significance and priority of the Freedom of Religion in the minds of the Founding Fathers is indubitably and simply manifest in its placement within the Bill of Rights. While extraordinarily important and preeminent, the Freedom of Religion is an exceptionally sensitive area of constitutional law. Specifically however, the Supreme Court case Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971 has had a tremendous impact on what lawfully constitutes an “establishment of religion”, and consequentially a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Court rational and affixation of the “Lemon tests” used to decide Lemon v. Kurtzman form significant precedent for subsequent court rulings and were a vital step to preserve the Freedom of Religion. Lemon v. Kurtzman was a Supreme Court case questioning the constitutionality of a Rhode Island statute and a Pennsylvania statute. Rhode Island’s 1969 Salary Supplement Act provided a fifteen percent supplement to the salaries of teachers in non-public schools at which the average money spent per-pupil was below the average in public schools. According to the statute, teachers eligible for this salary
Bibliography: “Agostini V. Felton (1997).” Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute. October 11, 2013. Accessed October 11, 2013. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/521/203. Audi, Robert. Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Blumberg, Phillip I Brudney, Daniel. “On Noncoercive Establishment” Political Theory , Vol. 33, No. 6 (Dec., 2005), pp. 812-839 Corbett, Michael and Julia Eisenstein, Marie A. “Rethinking the Relationship between Religion and Political Tolerance in the US” Political Behavior, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Dec., 2006), pp. 327-348. “Establishment Clause.” First Amendment Center. September 16, 2011. Accessed October 11, 2013. http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/establishment-clause. Ledewitz, Bruce. Church, State, and the Crisis in American Secularism. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Press, 2011. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971). MOTION. File Date: 3/30/1970. 29 pp. Term Year: 1970. U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978. Gale, Cengage Learning. Patrick Henry College Library. 20 September 2013 . “Lemon V Reichley, James. Faith in Politics. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2002. Way, Frank and Barbara Burt. “Religious Marginality and the Free Exercise Clause,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 77, No. 3 (Sep., 1983) 652-665.