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Religion: Supreme Court
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In addressing constitutional issues concerning religion and government, the Supreme Court has faced two fundamental challenges. The first is to give appropriate effect to the First Amendment's dual restriction on laws “respecting an establishment of religion†and laws “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.†Although the Court sometimes has treated these two provisions as conflicting, at other times it has sought to identify values that underlie both of them. One suggested common value is separation between the institutions of church and state, or more broadly between religious ideas and government. A second value is government “neutrality†toward religion in the sense of equal treatment among religions and between religion and nonreligious ideas or activities. Finally, a different sense of neutrality emphasizes liberty or private choice in matters of religion without state compulsion or interference. In particular cases, these values sometimes coincide but at other times conflict.
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When the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in 1963 against the practice of prayer in public schools, it recommended at the same time that the study of religion should be part of every student’s education. In Europe, new materials for the study of religion were gathered when European explorers first began to make extensive contact with non-Western cultures. Over the past four centuries, innumerable philosophers, anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists have proposed theories of religion. The common factor in their various perspectives is the perception that religion need not be studied from a sectarian or partisan standpoint but may be approached impartially, as a subject for scholarly investigation.
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The decisions striking down schoolâ€sponsored religion rest on broad concerns about endorsement of religion—the alienation of dissenting students and families from the school they support with their taxes and their energy. But the Court has ... mentioned that dangers of actual coercion are significant in Kâ€12 schools, whose young students are most vulnerable to overt or subtle pressures. In Lee v. Weisman (1992), the Rehnquist Court, to the surprise of many, held that a school violated the Establishment Clause by inviting a clergyman to give a brief prayer at graduation exercises. Far from overruling the earlier school prayer decisions, Weisman extended their principles from the classroom to other school events. The majority opinion avoided the nonendorsement test and instead employed the noncoercion principle, which many observers expected would lead to upholding schoolâ€sponsored prayer so long as no one was formally required to join in it. But Weisman’s concept of coercion was quite broad: dissenters did not have to join in the prayer, but were coerced simply by having to stand silently during it. Eventually, the Rehnquist Court majority explicitly embraced the stiffer nonâ€endorsement test in its 2000 decision invalidating officially sponsored prayers at football games.
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The civil trial in Moscow was the first to test Russia’s new law on religion in the courts. Hearings began on September 29, 1998, and were postponed twice before the suspension_once to allow time for the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office to find evidence for its charges, which it was unable to do. Four consecutive criminal cases on the same charges were dismissed for lack of evidence.
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In Lemon, for example, the state provided supplements to the salaries of privateâ€school teachers but required that they not teach religion in their classes. But the Court found that these controls themselves created excessive entanglement between church and state, in violation of the third prong of the test. The restrictions impeded the religious schools’ ability to carry out their mission of inculcating religious values. They ... required state authorities regularly to monitor how schools spent their funds.
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The right to freedom of religion is a fundamental right according to the Indian Constitution. The Constitution ... recommends establishment of a uniform civil code for its citizens as a Directive Principle.[26] However this has not been implemented until now. The Supreme Court has stated that the enactment of a uniform civil code all at once may be counterproductive to the unity of the nation, and only a gradual progressive change should be brought about (Pannalal Bansilal v State of Andhra Pradesh, 1996).[27] In Maharishi Avadesh v Union of India (1994) the Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking a writ of mandamus against the government to introduce a common civil code, and thus laid the responsibility of its introduction on the legislature.[28]
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