{"id":339,"date":"2023-06-02T15:17:25","date_gmt":"2023-06-02T15:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/shreya-ranjan-the-establishment-and-free-exercise-clauses\/"},"modified":"2023-06-02T21:29:03","modified_gmt":"2023-06-02T21:29:03","slug":"shreya-ranjan-the-establishment-and-free-exercise-clauses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/shreya-ranjan-the-establishment-and-free-exercise-clauses\/","title":{"rendered":"Shreya Ranjan- The Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Video<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Establishment and Free Exercise Clause\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vSmuIZONFbE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Written Component<\/h3>\n\n\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Created by James Madison as part of the First Amendment, the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses are now crucial parts of the American right to freedom. However, they weren\u2019t always considered this way: America, since its founding, has been predicated on the concept of religious freedom. Indeed, many of the original colonies had been composed of immigrants who had fled from Europe to escape religious persecution, such as the Quakers in Pennsylvania. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Establishment and Free Practice Clauses were created to ban the implementation of an official national religion (it\u2019s important to note that under the Establishment Clause, states were still allowed to have official religions, and some continued to do so until the 1830s (1)<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">), to prevent congress from unfairly favoring one religion over another, and to guarantee citizens the ability to practice their respective religions. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The founders included these clauses to prevent the tyranny which would inevitably form out of the union of church and state, as well as to guarantee what was considered the \u201cinalienable right\u201d of citizens to free religious practice. Interpretations of the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses have often been specific, especially within the rulings of the Supreme Court: the juxtaposition of cases such as <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kennedy v Bremerton School District<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Santa Fe School District v Doe <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">makes these differences clear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Interestingly enough, both cases involved similar pretenses; Kennedy sued the Bremerton School District for violating his Free Practice Clause rights after the District ordered him to stop praying before football games, whilst the Santa Fe School District was sued for organizing student led prayers over loudspeakers before football games and thus violating the Establishment Clause. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the case of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kennedy<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, the Supreme Court sided with the plaintiffs, writing that since Kennedy\u2019s prayers were non-mandatory and discreet, they did not violate the Establishment Clause. However, the court noted that the District\u2019s order was in violation of the Free Exercise Clause. Nearly 20 years earlier, the court ruled against the Santa Fe School District, saying that prayers conducted over the loudspeaker were in violation of the Establishment Clause since they were organized and affiliated with the public school and, therefore, the government. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The distinction between government affiliated prayer and private prayer lends an interesting weight to these clauses, as the dilemma of separation between church and state has fascinated society for many years. Paralleling the Establishment Clause was the dechristianization of society during the French Revolution, wherein symbols of religion were removed throughout France. Interestingly enough, these sentiments continue today into modern French society\u2014 oftentimes, steps taken to eradicate the symbols of religion in public society have been targeted and Islamophobic (2)<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This targeting raises the question of where the line should be drawn to separate government-affiliated and private religious symbolism: in the case of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Doe<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, there were arguments that since the prayer was student-led, it did not violate the First Amendment. However, general consensus does seem to indicate that prayer conducted over a loudspeaker is considered public and, therefore, was in violation of the Establishment Clause.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Footnotes:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (1) <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Marc A. Clauson, &#8220;Religious freedom since the First Amendment and early state constitutions,&#8221; Constituting America, accessed June 1, 2023, <\/span>https:\/\/constitutingamerica.org\/religious-freedom-since-first-amendment-early-state-constitutions-guest-essayist-marc- clauson\/#:~:text=Massachusetts%20was%20the%20last%20state,well%20as%20the%20national%20government.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0(2) <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rachel Donadio, &#8220;Why Is France so Afraid of God?,&#8221; <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Atlantic<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, November 22, 2021, accessed June 1, 2023, https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/magazine\/archive\/2021\/12\/france-god-religion-secularism\/620528\/.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Created by James Madison as part of the First Amendment, the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses are now crucial parts of the American right to freedom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4491,"featured_media":338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[177,345,145,150,176,151,175,347,344,343,346,342,19],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-and","tag-clauses","tag-establishment","tag-establishment-clause","tag-exercise","tag-first-amendment","tag-free","tag-free-exercise-clause","tag-ranjan","tag-shreya","tag-shreya-ranjan","tag-shreya-ranjan-the-establishment-and-free-exercise-clauses","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4491"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}