Quote:
Originally posted by Solid
Is it important for the state to be religious as opposed to irreligious?
Solid
|
As a moral or political judgment, that is a matter of personal opinion.
As a legal judgment, there is a long history of case law supporting the judgment that the state has an interest in acknowledging the divine inspiration of the Founders and for our nation and its institutions.
For example, in
Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 (1984), the Supreme Court reasoned that "[t]here is an unbroken history of official acknowledgment by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life from at least 1789."
Id. at 674. A large number of cases have echoed the statement that "[w]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being". In a concurrence in another case, Justice O'Connor noted that "government recognition and acknowledgment of the role of religion in the lives of our citizens [serve the] "secular purposes of 'solemnizing public occasions, expressing confidence in the future and encouraging the recognition of what is worthy of appreciation in society'".
Even a Justice as liberal as William Brennan stated once that "reference to divinity in the revised pledge of allegiance, for example, may merely recognize the historical fact that our Nation was believed to have been founded 'under God.' Thus reciting the pledge may be no more of a religious exercise than the reading aloud of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which contains an allusion to the same historical fact."