U.S. Constitutional Law and Religion

Constitutional Law and Religion

For Professor Dane's PowerPoint presentation from 2019, click HERE. 

Dane noted the religious origins of many local colleges and universities. Temple University was started by a Baptist minister in the 1880s. It retained religious affiliation until the 1960s when it became a public institution. The theological school became the Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Massachusetts. Rutgers University originally had ties to the Dutch Reformed Church. Rutgers used to ordain ministers. When the university went public, theological teaching continued through the New Brunswick Theological Seminary.  

 An overview of Dane's Lecture

• The Basic Issues

• The American Experiment, and its Religious Roots

• Contemporary Questions

• Global Diversity, Challenges and Baselines

The Basic Issues

Structural Relations

• The basic legal and economic connections between religion and government.

• There are some places where there are historical relations between the state and the church i.e. the UK, but today, religion is more ceremonial. 

• Financial connections: in some countries, the state will provide funding for religious institutions.  In Germany, the state provides funding to the the religious group of your church. In the UK, the state provides some funding to religious schools.

Religious Institutional Autonomy

• To what extent do religious communities govern themselves?

• Does the state have control over the leaders, membership, or other dimension of the life of religious communities? In the U.S., there are laws that prevent hiring discrimination based on gender, but religious institutions are typically considered to be exempt from these laws. 

• In Israel, family law (divorce, child custody, etc.) is often left to various religious courts in Israel.

• When religious communities split, how is property divided up between contesting parties? U.S. courts have struggled to decide such cases. 

Individual Religious Liberty

• Example of the Amish community in the United States. Wisconsin v. Yoder Supreme Court case (1972) regarding compulsory education. The court granted Amish children an exemption due the religious rights of the parents. A dissenting justice argued that this was not in the best interest of the children. 

• Examples of religious clothing and attire: In France, hijabs and religious clothing can be banned in public. In the U.S., this would be understood to be a violation of the free exercise clause.  

• U.S. Supreme Court Case: Church of Lukumi Babalu v. City of Hialeah (1993) the case sided with the religious community's right to sacrifice animals.