Analysis Of The Lemon Test

The Lemon Test, which was created in a case called Lemon V. Kurtzman, consists of three “prongs” (Speich 275). They are that “governmental action be supported by a secular purpose, that it not have the principal or primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and that it ‘not foster “an excessive governmental entanglement with religion.”’” (qtd. in Conkle). In other words, the first “prong” requires the court to question the intent of the government or group in charge of creating the policy; the second prong asks the court to determine the result of the policy and its effects on religion, and the last “prong” asks the court to not complicate the dynamic of the church and the state (Speich 275). The Endorsement test is used after the first two prongs of the lemon test have been verified. First occurring in Lynch V. Donnelly, the Endorsement test states that the “government cannot endorse, favor, promote, or prefer any religious belief or practice” (Speich 277). The test asks the judges if the policy in question merely looks like it endorses religion. The Coercion test, which is sometimes used instead of the lemon test such as in Lee v. Weisman case, asks if the policy tricks members of the minority or “dissenting” religion into participating (Schweitzer; Speich 278).

In Larkin v. Grendel’s Den, Inc., 459 U.S. 116, 123 (1982), this Court found that the wall between religion and government was substantially breached because “delegating a governmental power to religious institutions inescapably implicates the Establishment Clause.”

In Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), “the Supreme Court established a three-part test for determining when states were allowed to support religious accommodations, making it permissible when the law served a “secular legislative purpose;” when the law did not promote or impede religious interests, and when the law would not create ‘an excessive government entanglement with religion.’”(P. R. Lockhart, 2016)

The Lemon test refers to the case Lemon vs. Kurtzman, which took place in 1971. The case was heard with two other cases involving religion and education, with the main issue being financial support for teacher salaries that were part of parochial schools. State financial aid was being awarded to non-public schools that were teaching religion, which created unsettlement (https://www.oyez.org/cases/1970/89.) The establishment clause was intended to prevent government involvement or support of religion.

The first amendment, Establishment Clause, prohibits the state and federal government from establishing an official religion or from favoring or disfavoring one religion over another. Though government cannot declare an official religion, citizens are given the privilege to practice their own religions freely. In Ancient Rome, Constantine the Great ruled the empire from 306 A.D to 337 A.D. He issued the Edict of Milan, which declared religious tolerance throughout the entire empire. Along with this, while on his death bed, he converted to Christianity. After his death, the people of Rome converted as well and Christianity spread under this proclamation which is still part of our society today.

When discussing the intertwining of church and state; soul liberty and freedom from religious belief, we must recognize that freedom and faith were at one point complementary ideas. Faith was once the foundation for freedom and vice versa. The Declaration of Independence clearly states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights." With these words from the Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers set up their vision of what this country would come to be. Among those rights, which are deemed “inalienable”, is the right of religious liberty. (Neumann, 1990: p. 241)

The portrayal of the separation of church and state, and the harmony in the middle of law and religion, is one of persevering disarray in current American protected hypothesis and origination. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution is generally accepted to be the determination of this mass of partition, on the other hand, the Framers never purposed such a divider. Some portion of the perplexity in comprehension religious freedom inside of the setting of the political, lawful, and social measurements of America lives in the United States Supreme Court's foundation and free practice

While writing the constitution the founding fathers said “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” When they said this they

In the First Amendment it states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This is known as the Establishment Clause, and it has been a controversial topic of many Supreme Court cases throughout America’s history. There are three different methods of constitutional interpretation--textualism, intentionalism, and pragmatism—that have shaped the Supreme Court’s rulings on the Establishment Clause. The Establishment Clause is usually interpreted in two different ways: “The Establishment Clause prohibits government actions—federal, state, or local—that promote religion,” and that “The Establishment Clause prohibits the establishment of a national religion.” There is a common metaphor that accompanies the Establishment Clause know as the “wall of separation.” The Establishment Clause has this “wall” in order to keep the church and state separate. This is a reoccurring theme I have seen develop throughout various court cases. I studied four different cases that made it to the Supreme Court: Everson vs. Board of Education, Lynch vs. Donnelly, Lee vs. Weisman, and Santa Fe Independent School District vs. Jane Doe. During the brief period of me studying these four cases involving the Establishment Clause, I have inferred that pragmatism has indicated the utmost dominance in shaping the Supreme Court’s rulings on the Establishment Clause.

Therefore, the Lemon Test is a three-part assessment tool designed by the government to asses the following practice or policy violations of the Establishment Clause: “a) its purpose is to endorse or disapprove of religion, b) its primary effect is to aid or inhibit religion or, c) it either creates excessive administrative entanglements between church and state

Separation of church and state is a defined as, the understanding of the intent, and function of the Establishment Clause, and Free Exercise Clause. The Combination of church and state has been a topic that, many generations have struggled with for centuries. The first amendment of the constitution states that “Congress shall make no law about our religious beliefs, or prohibiting our free exercise of religion” If we put our faith in the constitution to define the founding father’s standpoint of separation of church and state, then we have definitely misinterpreted their stance on religion. Many people believe the reference to separation of church and state is in the original constitution, but the truth is, the references, often conceptualized and misinterpreted as intertwining with our religious freedom, but that is not the truth.

This paper is a book critique of The Godless Constitution. The first chapter of the book is titled “Is America a Christian Nation?” and it is an introduction for the rest of the book. In this chapter, the main idea is to open the reader’s mind about that the constitution was created with the idea that religious believes will not influence in the politics of the nation. The authors state that “The principal framers of the American political system wanted no religious parties in national politics” (Kramnick and Moore, 23). Actually, the creation of a constitution without influence of religion was not an act of irreverence. The authors believe that the creation of the constitution was a support to the idea that religion can preserve the civil morality necessary for democracy, without an influence on any political party. The end of the chapter is the description of the following chapters and with a disguise warning that both authors were raise in religious families and they wrote the book with high respect for America’s religious traditions (Kramnick and Moore, 25). The second chapter, called “The Godless Constitution” explains how the different terms to talk about God were taken out and a “no religious test” clause was adopted with little discussion. This clause was a “veritable firestorm” during the ratification debates in several states (Kramnick and Moore, 32). For many people the “no religious test” clause was considered as the gravest defect of the Constitution (Kramnick

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution founded the concrete belief that government and faith-based institutions must and will remain separate from one another. This section of the first amendment disavows the U.S. government to establish or sanction any system of organized faiths or religions upon the people or to outlaw or disgrace any systems of organized faiths as well. But the line discerning the legitimacy of a faith and the true extent of the government's power over faith-based organizations has only remained to become muddled over the past 240 years of its establishment. Over the years, the ideology and true intent of the founding fathers had remained in question, where some believe the amendment addresses to the general

One of the protections offered in the Bill of rights is the free exercise of religion. The first amendment contained in the Bill of rights stated that “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (Ginsberg, et al. 2015, P. 122). The freedom of religion is a great example of one of the protections contained in the bill of rights. The first amendment and the freedom of religion contain an establishment clause. This limit of governmental power puts a separation between the church and state. The Government, for instance, is not allowed to establish an official church and may not take sides among

The separation of the church and state is one of the fundamental principles of U.S. government and law and with it, comes a deep history to back it up. It began many years prior to the establishment of the first public educational institution. Towards the end of the 1700s, many different religious groups began to flourish which made it impossible for them all to be under the control of the states. This is where the