Comments on: Carson v. Makin (My Free Exercise Can Beat Up Your Wall of Separation) https://bluecerealeducation.com/blog/carson-v-makin-my-free-exercise-can-beat-your-wall-separation/ Sun, 04 Jun 2023 20:20:12 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 By: Blue Cereal https://bluecerealeducation.com/blog/carson-v-makin-my-free-exercise-can-beat-your-wall-separation/comment-page-1/#comment-387 Thu, 07 Jul 2022 12:50:58 +0000 http://localhost:8888/bluecerealwp/blog/carson-v-makin-my-free-exercise-can-beat-your-wall-separation/#comment-387 In reply to Eric Welch.

Government Religion

Eric – I appreciate your insights and I think you’re absolutely right about several key issues. I’m curious to see (assuming the country survives long enough) whether or not this Court now begins finding “constitutional” reasons to fund and defend American Christianity in ways it won’t do for other faiths. The most obvious pathway would be to revive some of the arguments about tradition or cultural history rejected by earlier courts, but prevalent in a number of powerful dissents. 

I suspect any beliefs creating substantive conflicts (i.e., “I believe God values gay kids just as much as straight kids” or “I believe in the sanctity of the mother’s life”) will be rapidly dismissed as not qualifying as “religion” in the same way as public prayer at football games. A few symbolic things may be tolerated (Muslim men growing beards in prison), but this Court desperately wants to defer to entrenched right-wing power in the name of – yet again – “states’ rights”. 

Or so it seems to me  😉 

]]> By: Eric Welch https://bluecerealeducation.com/blog/carson-v-makin-my-free-exercise-can-beat-your-wall-separation/comment-page-1/#comment-385 Thu, 07 Jul 2022 01:39:10 +0000 http://localhost:8888/bluecerealwp/blog/carson-v-makin-my-free-exercise-can-beat-your-wall-separation/#comment-385 Your essay: Carson v Makin
Great essay. I will have to read many more of them. There has always been tremendous tension between the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment. Scalia, in Employment Division v Smith came down on the side of government having an overriding concern to the detriment of religion and that resulted in RFRA laws all over the place which tipped things the other way. I think the current court is painting itself into a corner with decisions that appear to favor a particular brand of religion. That may come back to haunt them. Marcie Hamilton over at Verdict has already noted that a Jewish group is suing Florida under RFRA for its tightening of abortion restrictions, claiming their religion places a much higher value on the health and safety of the mother than that of the fetus. It will be interesting to see what Alito does with that. The religious schools may find they have grabbed a snake by the tail when they realize that federal and state money often comes with lots of strings. Rockford College (not even a religious College) in my area refused all federal money and grants for decades for just that reason. I think a larger problem is that dismantling secular public education is precisely what these folks want. (FYI, I was the one who commented on your Hamilton’s God v Gavel book.) I look forward to reading more of your essays.

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