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In the broadest terms, there are two main camps in this holy war. On one side are the "separationists," who argue that church and state must remain clearly apart and that government should not be in the business of endorsing one faith or another. Some members of the camp make their case on practical grounds: they insist that in a country with nearly 1,200 different religious bodies, the only way to keep the peace is to keep them all out of the shared public sphere. Too many wars have been fought, too many freedoms crushed in God's name, for a democracy to try to integrate theology into its public life.
Other separationists argue on religious grounds; they want to protect their own churches and their private beliefs from exploitation by politicians or demagogues. "Religious beliefs worthy of respect are the product of free and voluntary choice by the faithful," Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court's most ardent separationist, wrote in 1985. "Government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion."
In opposition are the "accommodationists," who believe that the "wall of separation" between church and state has grown too thick and costs too much. By isolating God from public life, they argue, the courts have replaced freedom of religion with freedom from religion. A nation's identity is informed by morality, and morality by faith. How can people freely debate issues like nuclear arms or the death penalty, how can children be educated, without any reference to spiritual heritage? As Justice Antonin Scalia observed in 1987, "Political activism by the religiously motivated is part of our heritage." The accommodationists deny that their agenda is to enforce conformity; all they want is for their positions to get a fair hearing.
For the past 40 years or so, because of a lengthy series of Supreme Court rulings, the tide has generally favored the separationists. In this nation of spiritual paradoxes, it is legal to hang a picture in a public exhibit of a crucifix submerged in urine, or to utter virtually any conceivable blasphemy in a public place; it is not legal, the federal courts have ruled, to mention God reverently in a classroom, on a football field or at a commencement ceremony as part of a public prayer.
The debate has now arrived at a crossroads. Last month the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that invites it to rewrite the canons of church- state law. Lee v. Weisman involves a Rhode Island rabbi whose bland prayer at a middle-school graduation was later ruled unconstitutional. The rabbi gave thanks to God for "the legacy of America, where diversity is celebrated and the rights of minorities are protected." The district court suggested that the invocation would have been fine if the rabbi had just left out all the references to God. The school board is arguing that so long as the prayer was not coercive, it did not violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
Various courts around the country have already wrestled with the same issue. California earlier this year ruled against the constitutionality of graduation prayers, as have Iowa and Rhode Island. Virginia and Pennsylvania permit them; it falls to the Supreme Court to decide which is right.