In closing, you might want to double check your new signature
Misquoting Lincoln
No thanks. Even the article you linked the author said he put it in quotes. I personally do not know what he said or did not say but just to be safe I will give him credit for the quote since so many people do.
You asked if I wrote the above myself. I just pasted it from the written decision. That is why I said it was from the decision.I say again it is not as clear an issue as you would like. There have been multiple supreme court cases on religion in schools. If it were such a clear issue the court would not have to keep hearing them.
This is from the case that may have started it all.
"Today, approximately two thousand communities in all but two states provide religious education in cooperation with the public schools for more than a million and a half of pupils."
and
Many uses of religious material in the public schools in a manner that has some religious significance have been sanctioned by state courts. These practices have been permitted: reading selections from the King James Bible without comment; reading the Bible and repeating the Lord's Prayer; teaching the Ten Commandments; saying prayers, and using textbooks based upon the Bible and emphasizing its fundamental teachings. When conducted in a sectarian manner, reading from the Bible and singing hymns in the school's morning exercise have been prohibited, as has using the Bible as a textbook. There is a conflict of authority on the question of the constitutionality of wearing religious garb while teaching in the public schools. It has been held to be constitutional for school authorities to prohibit the reading of the Bible in the public schools. There is a conflict of authority on the constitutionality of the use of public school buildings for religious services held outside of school hours. The constitutionality, under state constitutions, of furnishing free textbooks and free transportation to parochial school children is in conflict.
See Nichols v. Henry, 301 Ky. 434, 191 S.W.2d 930;
Findley v. City of Conneaut, 12 Ohio Supp. 161. The earlier cases are collected in 5 A.L.R. 866 and 141 A.L.R. 1144.
That was from 1948 I did not see a case earlier than that.
This is from the supreme court case in 1992 about prayer in school.
In that letter Jefferson penned his famous lines that the Establishment Clause built "a wall of separation between church and State."
Ibid. Davis considered that "[t]he first amendment to the Constitution ... was intended ... to prohibit legislation for the support of any religious tenets, or the modes of worship of any sect." 133 U. S., at 342. In another case,
Bradfield v.
Roberts, 175 U. S. 291 (1899), the Court held that it did not violate the Establishment Clause for Congress to construct a hospital building for caring for poor patients, although the hospital was managed by sisters of the Roman Catholic Church. The Court reasoned: "That the influence of any particular church may be powerful over the members of a non-sectarian and secular corporation, incorporated for a certain defined purpose and with clearly stated powers, is surely not sufficient to convert such a corporation into a religious or sectarian body."
Id., at 298. Finally, in 1908 the Court held that "the spirit of the Constitution" did not prohibit the Indians from using their money, held by the United States Government, for religious education. See
Quick Bear v.
Leupp, 210 U. S. 50, 81.
And that was from the majority opinion.
And of course from the minority side.
I must add one final observation: The Founders of our Republic knew the fearsome potential of sectarian religious belief to generate civil dissension and civil strife. And they also knew that nothing, absolutely nothing, is so inclined to foster among religious believers of various faiths a toleration-no, an affection-for one another than voluntarily joining in prayer together, to the God whom they all worship and seek. Needless to say, no one should be compelled to do that,
but it is a shame to deprive our public culture of the opportunity, and indeed the encouragement, for people to do it voluntarily.
I added the underline just to show my point that it is not as clear as some think.
On the more modern cases you can even watch the oral arguments on supreme.justia.com. It is kind of interesting to see just how narrow the points are that they are fighting over.
