Seperation Of Church

& State Essay, Research Paper

The controversial issue of separating church and state in public schools was tested in the courts numerous times in the years preceding the Jaffree decision. These prior cases helped influence the Supreme Court decision in Wallace v. Jaffree (1985). This case pertains to three Alabama statutes possibly by law establishing a state religion in public schools. These statutes all had the same basic concept and were passed consecutively within just a few years of each other.

The first statute passed in 1978 by the Alabama legislature (16-1-20) established a “period of silence not to exceed one minute in duration, that should be observed for meditation” in all public schools of the state. The second statute passed in 1981 (16-1-20.2) authorized a period of silence for “meditation or voluntary prayer.” “The third statute (16-1-20.2) was enacted in 1982, and stated that any teacher “in any educational institution within the state of Alabama, recognizing that the Lord God is one, at the beginning of any homeroom or any class” could lead a legislatively prescribed prayer” (Anglim 349). The second statute was the most constitutionally questioned issue and main part of the Supreme Courts decision.

In order to understand the Supreme Courts decision in Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), we must first lay out what decision-making took place in the lower courts before getting to the Supreme Court of the land. In its first stage of this case Jaffree.s argument was put in front of the District Court to decide. The decision from the district court was that first statute had nothing wrong with it at all. Both statutes two and three were invalid because they were “an effort in part of the State of Alabama to encourage a religious activity” (Wallace 3). But what really started making this case more interesting was that even though the District Court found these two statutes invalid, in its opinion, Alabama had the right to establish a state religion if it chose to do so. This was the belief that “the establishment clause of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not prohibit the state from establishing a religion” (Wallace 4).

The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Courts interpretation that both the second and third statutes, “meditation or voluntary prayer” and “leading willing students in a prescribed prayer”, determining that they were both unconstitutional. Their decision was that the state was bound by the establishment clause of the first amendment. Since the appellant party was no longer questioning the validity of the first statute, asking for a “moment of meditation”, this question was not answered by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court did not really get into the third question because both lower courts had found it to be unconstitutional, and it followed previous court precedents on government-prescribed prayer that found it invalid.

The majority opinion in Wallace v. Jaffree was delivered by Justice Stevens, in which Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun, and Powell joined. The court decision was to affirm the Appeals Court decision, thereby stating that the statute violated the first amendment. Stevens said that the establishment clause requires government neutrality and that this statute also failed the three-part Lemon test (Lemon v. Kurtzman 1971) because it did not have a secular purpose. There was no real purpose except to promote religious beliefs in changing the original statute to include the words “or voluntary prayer”.

Stevens remarked on the conclusion of the District Court, that the Federal Constitution imposes no obstacle to Alabama.s establishment of a state religion. He stated that States have no power to restrict the individual freedoms protected by our first amendment just like Congress. The state of Alabama had no constitutional right to create a state religion. The prior decision in Cantwell v. Connecticut (1940), established that indeed the fourteenth amendment rendered the legislatures of the states as incompetent as Congress to establish religion or prohibit the free the free exercise thereof. In this area I believe that the state of Alabama was not religiously neutral.

When the court is deciding over a case that involves the establishment clause, the statute in question should pass a three-part test called the Lemon Test. The Lemon test was created in the decision of Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1970. The three parts of the test are 1. The statute must have a secular legislative purpose. 2. Its principal or primary effect must be one that nether enhances nor inhibits religion. 3. The statute must not foster an excessive governmental entanglement with religion. The Alabama statute failed the Lemon test, which invalidates legislation having a religious, rather than a secular purpose. Because it had no clear secular purpose it violates the first amendment of the constitution.

I believe that an important fact that made this statute fail was the testimony of State Senator Donald Holmes, its prime sponsor.. During a District Court evidentiary hearing, “He explained that the bill was an .effort to return voluntary prayer to our public schools.it is a beginning and a step in the right direction” (Wallace 4). He also testified that this was the only purpose that the bill had in his mind. I believe that this helped prove that the bill had no secular purpose as needed to pass the Lemo