In Cutter, the Court starts its analysis by flatly stating that the Establishment Clause "commands a separation of Church and State."
Given the considerable effort in conservative legal circles to discredit the separation doctrine,* how notable do people think it is that Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas all joined the Court's opinion in Cutter? And where does a unanimous Supreme Court decision reaffirming the separation principle leave the "separation-is-a-liberal-activist-myth" movement? A doctrine unanimously adopted by the Court in the post-WWII era and unanimously reaffirmed by the Rehnquist Court would seem difficult to pin on liberal activists. * See, e.g., Robert Bork's review of Philip Hamburger's book, in which Bork concludes: "As constitutional doctrine, the [separation] myth should be viewed with contempt." http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/bork-church_state.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
