Over the course of this semester, we have looked into a lot of court cases dealing with the right to religion. One such way of guaranteeing the right to religion is through the Lemon test, a result of the Lemon v. Kurtzman trial. In this trial, a private school was given some funding from the state, so a parent from a public school sued. The mother won the case, and the three-part test became common practice for determining what laws can be sponsored by the government without violating the Establishment clause. The Lemon test says that 1. laws must have a secular purpose 2. they're may purpose may not be to advance or inhibit religion and 3. laws cannot create excessive government entanglement to religion.
Seems pretty simple right? Well, despite having learned this in class, the Lemon test is actually not well likely in modern society. Since Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971, the Lemon test has been argued against multiple times and slowly loses persuasion. Just early this year, in February of 2019, American Legion v. American Humanist Association was argued in the Supreme Court. This case deals with a 32 foot memorial to the fallen soldiers in World War I that is in the shape of a cross. The Court said that this was not an "excessive entanglement with religion" to keep the statue and to provide maintenance for it. Also, the statue would be able to stay, as it is 1. significant as a secular World War I symbol and 2. acquired historical importance. However, the strongest blow to the Lemon test is not the outcome of the case. When arguing the case, no justices actually tried to protect the Lemon test. Most simply did not mention it, while a few, including Justice Kavanaugh, argued that the Lemon test was outdated and not well thought out.
In class, we learned that the Lemon test was put in place to stop Congress from violating the Establishment Clause. And yet, we see now a Court that is very willing to allow the test to die. We see more Christians using their religious viewpoints as guidelines for what laws should be. These social conservatives put things like abortion rights up for discussion again. And lenience with the Establishment Clause in Court may lead Congress to attempt to make laws more tightly tied with Christianity. This would be a major issue, as it overlooks many of the minor yet prevalent religions in America that have only been able to gain rights through Court cases (Jews in Engel v. Vitale, Amish in Yoder v. Wisconsin). Without the protection of the Court and the Establishment Clause, these minority religions may easily be overlooked.
Sources:
https://www.freedomforuminstitute.org/2019/07/08/the-fate-of-the-lemon-test-d-o-a-or-barely-surviving/
https://ballotpedia.org/The_American_Legion_v._American_Humanist_Association
https://www.religioustolerance.org/lawmenu.htm
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ReplyDeleteI was surprised to see that the Lemon Test us losing such credibility. However I still don't think Congress or the Supreme Court will allow religion to entangle with the government even with the absence of the lemon test. As you explained earlier, in the Legion v. American Humanist Association, while the court chose to ignore the lemon test, they still used their own system to judge that religion should not be allowed in government policy. I believe secular policies will still remain, even if the lemon test is gone.
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