Quaker State: Pennsylvania’s Guide to Reducing the Friction for Religious Outsiders Under the Establishment Clause
Few statements have done more to confound a country than the ten simple words that begin our Bill of Rights: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. None disagree with the wisdom of this declaration; but disagreements on its meaning have stirred a popular enmity that accompanies few other cultural or legal issues. Being that the first five words apply to all of the First Amendment, the heart of the Establishment Clause lies in the latter five. Given the text’s ambiguity, the Supreme Court has indulged in navel-gazing, philosophizing, sloganeering, cultural analysis, and even insults in interpreting it. Inquiries into the establishment of religion have focused on such bizarre distinctions as the distance between a crèche and a plastic candy cane, the subjective feelings of hypothetical people, or even whether people of faith might lobby their government and vote. Yet, after almost sixty years of rhetorical skirmishing, no consistent interpretation of the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses prevails.
