I certainly did not mean to suggest that government subsidies are
necessarily good for religion. My point was that the situation in Europe
is far more complicated than Scalia suggests. Indeed, I think one of the
failings of Scalia's jurisprudence regarding the religion clauses is
that he tends to generalize about and oversimplify complex
constitutional questions.

 

Alan Brownstein

 

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marc Stern
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 10:41 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Drift of the Court on religion

 

But based on those subsidies, the UK has forbidden religious schools
receiving government aid to tell students  that homosexual behavior is
sinful (although they can teach that the church is opposed to homosexual
behavior). And under its laws regarding sexual orientation equality, it
has forbidden a Catholic school to fire a headmaster (a lovely English
term)  who had a same sex partner. Moreover, the British have at least
proposed that religious schools be required to accept a portion of
students of differ faiths to avoid religious segregation.( I don't know
off hand whether the proposal was adopted.)Thus, the question of whether
the religious subsidies advance religious freedom is more complicated
than Alan's post suggests-even before we get to the questioned of
whether the nominal Christianity of  public schools in England is itself
any boon to religion.

Marc Stern

________________________________

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brownstein,
Alan
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 1:35 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: Drift of the Court on religion

Sorry, Eugene. I can't help you on the question you asked about Justice
White. But on the question of whether Justice Scalia's arguments about
the Establishment clause are sound, I am somewhat perplexed by his
apparent belief that Europe is committed to the separation of church and
state and that religious expression is excluded from the public square
throughout the continent. I'm not an expert on comparative law - but, to
cite just one example,  it certainly seems to me that European countries
are far more likely to permit government subsidies of religious schools
and far more willing to permit religious teaching and prayer in the
public schools than the United States.

 

Alan Brownstein

 

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