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The first amendment to our constitution says this, "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
" The word separation, and the word church,
they are not there.
Back in early America the states encouraged Christianity, but no state allowed an exclusive state-sponsored denomination as they did in England, and often times in Europe. Many citizens still had memories of the earlier times in their home countries when one denomination did rule over, and did oppress others. So to prevent this from ever happening here in America, they wrote the first amendment!
But the first amendment has gonethrough many rewritings.
The separation of church and state is a legal and political principle derived from the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."
The phrase "separation of church and state", which does not appear in the Constitution itself, is generally traced to an 1802 letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, where Jefferson spoke of the combined effect of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. It has since been quoted in several opinions handed down by the United States Supreme Court
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The phrase "separation of church and state"
became a definitive part of Establishment Clause jurisprudence in Everson v. Board of Education, 330
U.S. 1 (1947), a case which dealt with a state law that allowed the use of government funds for transportation to religious schools.
While the ruling upheld the state law allowing taxpayer funding of transportation to religious schools as constitutional, Everson was also the first case to hold the Establishment Clause applicable to the state legislatures as well as Congress, based upon the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
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In 1962, the Supreme Court extended this analysis to the issue of prayer and religious readings in public schools.
In Engel v. Vitale 370 U.S. 421 (1962), the Court determined it unconstitutional by a vote of 6-1 for state officials to compose an official school prayer and require its recitation in public schools, even when it is non-denominational and students may excuse themselves from participation.
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As such, any teacher, faculty, or student can pray in school, in accordance with their own religion.
However, they may not lead such prayers in class, or in other "official" school settings such as assemblies or programs, including even "non-sectarian" teacher-led prayers, e.g. "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country," which was part of the prayer required by the New York State Board of Regents prior to the Court's decision.
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As the Court stated:
The petitioners contend, among other things, that the state laws requiring or permitting use of the Regents' prayer must be struck down as a violation of the Establishment Clause because that prayer was composed by governmental officials as a part of a governmental program to further religious beliefs.
For this reason, petitioners argue, the State's use of the Regents' prayer in its public school system breaches the constitutional wall of separation between Church and State.
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We agree with that contention, since we think that the constitutional prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion must at least mean that, in this country, it is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people to recite as a part of a religious program carried on by government.
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The court noted that it "is a matter of history that this very practice of establishing governmentally composed prayers for religious services was one of the reasons which caused many of our early colonists to leave England and seek religious freedom in America."[27]
Currently, the Supreme Court applies a three-pronged test to determine whether legislation comports with the Establishment Clause, known as the "Lemon Test".
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First, the legislature must have adopted the law with a neutral or non-religious purpose. Second, the statute's principal or primary effect must be one that neither advances nor inhibits religion. Third, the statute must not result in an excessive entanglement of government with religion.[28]
In 2002, a three judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sparked a substantial controversy in holding that a California law prescribing the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools was unconstitutional, due to the inclusion of the phrase "under God." In reaction to the case, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, both houses of Congress passed measures reaffirming their support for the pledge, and condemning the panel's ruling.[29]
The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, where hearings began in March 2004. It was ultimately overturned by the Supreme Court in June of 2004, but on procedural grounds not related to the substantive constitutional issue.
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