Shifting Boundaries: The Establishment Clause ...

[Why Syzygy]

http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=327

Shifting Boundaries: The Establishment Clause and Government Funding of Religious Schools and Other Faith-Based Organizations
May 2009

The debate over government funding of religious groups and institutions raises some of the thorniest issues in the ongoing discussion about the appropriate relationship between church and state. Most legal scholars agree that the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution limits at least some government funding of religion, but they disagree sharply on exactly what is permissible.

Participants in the debate fall roughly into two camps: On the one side are "separationists," who broadly interpret the Establishment Clause - which prohibits all laws "respecting an establishment of religion" - to require that government refrain from aiding or promoting religion or religious institutions. Strict separationists therefore claim that most, or even all, government funding of religion is unconstitutional. On the other side are those who interpret the Establishment Clause much more narrowly, contending that government funding of religion is constitutional as long as the funding is neutral, meaning it does not favor religion over non-religion or favor a particular faith over other faiths. (...)

The complete report is 17 pages, pdf
http://pewforum.org/newassets/images/reports/funding/funding.pdf

(...) During and immediately after the American
Revolution, however, government funding of
religion came under attack. Religious minorities,
including Baptists and Methodists, argued that
government support of religion infringed upon
the liberty that the colonists fought to win from
the British crown. In response, defenders of religious
establishments countered that the government
needed to fund religion because public
virtue depended on vigorous religious institutions,
which, they argued, could not survive with purely
private support. But between 1776 and 1790,
critics of religious establishments gained the upper
hand, as Maryland, New York, North Carolina,
South Carolina and Virginia adopted constitutional
provisions prohibiting the establishment of religion. (...)