American Politics Today - Essentials (3rd Ed)

FREEDOM OF RELIGION| 105

cited in Court decisions that prohibit state aid for religious activities, but lately

the Court has been displaying a more “accommodationist” perspective that some-

times allows religious activity in public institutions.

SCHOOL PRAYER

The issue of prohibition of prayer in public schools exploded onto the political
scene in 1962 when the Court ruled in Engle v. Vitale that a prayer written by the
New York Board of State Regents and read every day in the state’s public schools
violated the separation of church and state.^47 Banning the prayer caused a public
outcry protesting the perceived attack on religion.
Over the next 50 years Congress repeatedly tried, unsuccessfully, to amend
the Constitution to allow school prayer. Meanwhile, the Court continued to take a
hard line on school-sponsored prayer. In 1985 the Court struck down the practice
of observing a one-minute moment of silence for “meditation or voluntary prayer”
in the Alabama public schools.^48 More recently, the Court said that benedictions
or prayers at public school graduations and a school policy that allowed an elected
student representative to lead a prayer at a high school football game also violated
the establishment clause.^49 Yet the Court has upheld the practice of opening every
session of Congress with a prayer and has let stand without comment a lower court
ruling that allowed a prayer that was planned and led by students (rather than
being school policy) at a high school graduation.^50

AID TO RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS

The Court has had an even more diffi cult time determining principles to govern

aid to religious organizations, either directly, through tax dollars, or indirectly,

through the use of public space. One early attempt was known as the Lemon test,

after one of the parties in a 1971 case involving government support for religious

schools (Lemon v. Kurtzman). Here the justices ruled that a practice violated the

establishment clause if it (1) did not have a “secular legislative purpose,” (2) either

Lemon test The Supreme Court

uses this test, established in Lemon v.

Kurtzman, to determine whether a

practice violates the First Amend-

ment’s establishment clause.

CAN A CROSS BE DISPLAYED ON

federal land? The Supreme Court

has ruled that religious displays

on government property must be

part of larger, secular displays.

This cross on federal land in the

Mojave Desert was covered up

after it became controversial.