Breaking Down the Wall between Church and State

State Adoption of Religious Inclusion Legislation, 1995-2009

Bibliographic Data

ID5708003
AuthorsKeith Gunnar Bentele (University of Massachusetts Boston, corresponding author), Rebecca Sager (Loyola Marymount University), A Soule, Sarah A Soule (Stanford University), A Soule S A Soule, G Adler, Gary J Adler (0000-0002-0580-8362, Institute of Criminology), G Adler G Adler
Year2014
Volume56
Issue3
Pages503-533
Publication date2014-09-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Church and State (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-969X • E-ISSN: 2040-4867
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jcs/css145
OpenAlexW2043795252
LanguageEN
Citations received7

During the past twenty years, there has been a proliferation of significant, yet often overlooked, state-level legislative developments that challenge the notion of a limited role for government in the promotion or facilitation of religion and that seek to allow and protect greater religious expression in public institutions. For example, several states have passed laws that allow for religious displays or mottoes in public spaces, while other states now have mandates requiring moments of silence in public schools.1 While debates about the appropriate relationship between church and state have long been acrimonious,2 since the mid-1990s there has been a marked increase at the state level in both the type and number of laws that both directly and indirectly impact church-state relations in this regard. Specifically, state legislatures have passed 87 different laws that test the limits of late twentieth-century jurisprudence regarding church-state separation, or intentionally seek to fashion a new regime of closer church-state interaction. This new regime is characterized by largely symbolic legal protections of free exercise of religion, overt support for display of religious symbols in public settings, the facilitation of access to public funding for religious institutions, and the characterization of religion as embattled by a secular state.

Government (linguistics) · Inclusion (mineral) · Jurisprudence · Legislation · Legislature · Political science · Politics · Separation of church and state · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science) · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Public Administration · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development

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