Say that a City Council mounts a display of historical American documents that have religious themes -- say, the ones cited in Justice Scalia's McCreary dissent -- with an introductory posting that says: "The City Council of [name] condemns the Supreme Court's decisions striking down the display of religious symbols in government buildings. These decisions go against centuries of American tradition, as well as against the views of the Framers. Throughout American history, governmental bodies have repeatedly acknowledged God, and should continue to be free to do so. We post just a few samples of such acknowledges of God, which we believe should be constitutional." And let's say that this indeed sincerely reflects the City Council members' purpose -- not implausible, since I suspect that quite a few government officials would like to do this sort of thing.
Would this be constitutional? Should it be? Rereading McCreary County led me to think that this sort of purpose is part of what was going on as to the second and third displays, though I would think only a part. I'm curious what would happen if this was really the government's purpose. Eugene _______________________________________________ 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.