To help win ratification, Madison proposed a bill of rights that would include religious liberty. As presidents, though, both Jefferson and Madison could be accused of mixing religion and government. Madison issued proclamations of religious fasting and thanksgivings while Jefferson signed treaties that sent religious ministers to the Native Americans.
It was not until after World War II that the Court interpreted the meaning of the establishment clause. In Everson v. Board of Education , the Court held that the establishment clause is one of the liberties protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, making it applicable to state laws and local ordinances. Since then the Court has attempted to discern the precise nature of the separation of church and state. In the Court considered the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania statute that provided financial support to nonpublic schools for teacher salaries, textbooks, and instructional materials for secular subjects and a Rhode Island statute that provided direct supplemental salary payments to teachers in nonpublic elementary schools.
In Lemon v. Kurtzman , the Court established a three-pronged test for laws dealing with religious establishment. Twenty-six years later the Court modified the Lemon test in Agostini v. In County of Allegheny v. Kennedy in his dissent developed a coercion test : the government does not violate the establishment clause unless it provides direct aid to religion in a way that would tend to establish a state church or involve citizens in religion against their will.
In Lynch v. Her fundamental concern was whether government action conveyed a message to non-adherents that they are outsiders. The endorsement test is often invoked in religious display cases.
In McCreary County v. W e are told that one should avoid discussing two things at the dinner table: religion and politics. Clearly they have never eaten at our dinner tables. Religion and politics can be polarizing, precisely because they deal with important matters that are deeply personal and close to our passions. But these discussions do not have to be polarizing or combative.
This act inspired and shaped the guarantees of religious liberty eventually found in the First Amendment. In short, the act affirmed what we should recognize in every era: the right to practice any faith, or to have no faith, is a foundational freedom for all Americans. Jefferson wrote back that religious liberty, free from state tampering, would be a key part of the American vision. Jefferson was not suggesting that religious people or religious motivations should be exiled from public debate.
As a matter of fact, the letter was from a religious people appealing to an elected official for their rights — an elected official who, by the way, attended church services during his administration inside the United States Capitol.
In its day, a constitutional prohibition that the state would not establish or restrain personal faith was truly revolutionary. Sadly, in many countries today, religious freedom is still revolutionary. America has the obligation to live this truth and demonstrate the depth of this powerful human right. In its extreme, the patronato led to state absolutism and control of the Church. In the course of history with the rise of liberal democracy and secular states, the union of Church and state was replaced by the separation of Church and state.
The Church lost its privileged status but it was a blessing in disguise since it ended not just the patronage of the state but also interference and control of the Church by the state. Paradoxically, nowadays, state control of religion only happens in communist states — but without the state support or patronage. Thus, the separation of the Church and state is to the advantage of the Church for it protects the Church from state control and interference.
The Church can freely carry out her mission in proclaiming the Gospel and the moral values of the Christianity, in denouncing evil in society, in serving the common good, in working for the defense of life and the environment, in struggling for justice and peace, and in operating social action projects that benefit the poor.
It does not prevent the Church from involvement in the social and political field. This means that a government official cannot just tell members of the Church to stop attending worship services or to stop giving financial contribution. It does not allow any government official to dictate to the clergy what to preach and what not to preach. It does not allow the state to compel priests to break the seal of confession.
0コメント