The Most Important Church-State Decision You Never Heard of

[deadparrot]

Television preacher Pat Robertson can barely contain his anger when he talks about a 1947 Supreme Court decision called Everson v. Board of Education.

Robertson attacked the ruling on his "700 Club" several times last year. Everson came out of anti-Catholicism, he sputtered in January of 2006. Four months later, he blasted the decision because in it the justices "relied on a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists talking about a wall of separation that isn't in the Constitution."

Robertson is not the only one riled up over Everson. The case, considered a seminal ruling in modern church-state law, marks its 60th anniversary next month. Acknowledged as the most pivotal church-state ruling of the 20th century, Everson has become a magnet for both Religious Right broadsides and law review blasts from right-wing legal scholars.

Why is the far right so eager to discredit Everson? The case is crucial because in it the Supreme Court laid down a concise and wide-ranging definition of the First Amendment's religion provisions that have had a profound effect on church-state law. In addition, a unanimous court strongly endorsed Jefferson's assertion that the American people, through the First Amendment, have "erected a wall of separation between church and state." For anyone seeking to undermine that wall, discrediting Everson is job one.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/47365/

[happyslug]

1. The Actual Supreme Court Decision of Justice Black

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/everson.html

Find Law citation:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=330&invol=1

[nebenaube]

2. ya know...

If xtians were indeed persecuted, Robertson & Flawell would already be uh... on the other side...

[intheflow]

3. If Christians were indeed persecuted,

Robertson and Falwell would never have gotten on the air. Instead, we'd have a multitude of cable channels dedicated to Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Earth-Centered Spirituality.

[Dark]

5. Don't forget the gays. n/t

[intheflow]

6. I guess I never really thought of "gay" as a religion.

:shrug:

[Quantess]

4. Afternoon kick.