Religious Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases That Define the Debate Over Church and State

The Framers were thinking of the federal government in 1791 when they amended the Constitution for the first time, prohibiting Congress from enacting any ``law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.'' But in the 1940s, the Supreme Court greatly broadened the protections provided in those two religious-liberty clauses when it found that they also applied to actions of the individual states. In assuming that position, the Court placed itself at the epicenter of the ongoing debate about religion's role in a society that is secularly governed. Eastland, Forbes Media Critic executive editor and a senior fellow at Washington's Ethics and Law Policy Center, promises in his foreword to furnish us ``a basic reader on the church-state debate,'' a purpose he accomplishes with authority by chronologically presenting the majority and dissenting opinions handed down in the 25 most significant church-state cases argued before the Court from 1940 to 1992. To this illuminating core, Eastland adds a sampling, drawn from major newspapers, religion magazines and other media, of diverse editorial opinion about many of the cases, as well as reflective essays by prominent law and government professors. The resulting whole provides a trenchant overview ranging from neoconservative to liberal perspectives on the implications of the Court's evolving jurisprudence about religion's impact upon American life. A valuable aide to plumbing the complexities of church-state issues.(Apr.)