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To accommodationists, previous Supreme Court decisions appear to be sending the message that religion is acceptable so long as it is not too public. It is a strange definition of free speech and religious liberty, they note, that prohibits mention of God. "Angela Davis, a communist, was the speaker at my son's high school graduation," says Berkeley law professor Phillip Johnson. "People have to listen to the most heavy-handed dogmatism. Then suddenly the Constitution is violated if an agnostic hears the word God. This is absurd. If we have to put up with things we don't agree with, why is only God excluded?"
The issues involved are not mere differences of philosophy; in the inner cities especially, the debate is deeply practical. Religious groups contend that moral and spiritual teaching can strengthen their efforts in prevention of teen pregnancy and drug abuse, as well as health services, tutoring and % other social services, and that such groups can perform those tasks more cheaply and humanely than government agencies.
THE LEGAL DEBATE
At the heart of the legal debate is the clashing of two constitutional principles enshrined in the First Amendment. The idea of guaranteeing "free exercise" of religion while shunning any "establishment" of religion was designed to protect liberty and keep the peace. Anyone could worship however he or she pleased, the framers said, but the government was forbidden to install a monopoly state church along the lines of the Church of England.
These were radical notions at the time, born of a commitment to moral self- improvement and an Enlightenment faith in the power of free inquiry and tolerance. The task of the Founding Fathers -- some of them quite devout, others much less so -- was to identify some vision of the common good that could be shared by citizens with very different priorities. They constructed a system of government and law in which freedom and equality were both essential, and religion was neither too close a friend nor the enemy.
During those years and beyond, churches enjoyed fairly free access to the public sphere. Before the Revolution, the Anglican church in Georgia was supported by a tax, and under the state's first constitution, only Protestants were allowed to sit in the legislature. When the Bill of Rights took effect, five of the 13 states had government-sponsored churches, and most schools were church-run. For literally centuries, until 1961, Maryland required officeholders to declare their belief in God. The problem is that as the nation's religious life grew more varied and its public life more complex, it became nearly impossible to uphold both constitutional principles -- free exercise and nonestablishment -- with equal consistency.
The modern debate over church-state separation dates back to 1947, when the Supreme Court first set strict limits on the use of state funds that benefit religious institutions or activities. Justice Hugo Black, a Baptist, wrote that neither federal nor state governments "can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another." That ruling marked a sharp separationist turn in court thinking. It unleashed a torrent of litigation that continues to flood courtrooms 44 years later. And in a succession of cases, the court drew the line ever more strictly.