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By virtue of a long- standing campaign spear- headed by the ACLU, and somewhat successful in the Courts. Originally, there was a prohibition against establishing a national Church, although some states continued to have established Churches. This was not taken to prohibit all religious expression, as witness the long tradition of a Presidential Proclamation of a National Day of Prayer, which dates back to George Washington, or the practice of opening sessions of Congress with a non- sectarian benediction. Anyway, after the Civil War amendments, it was held by the Supreme Court that the entire Bill of Rights was applicable to each state as much as the Federal Government. Later, the Court ruled against unnecessary "entanglement" with religion, since it might seem to be favoritism, and thus a de facto establishment, and applied such rulings to the states. For a long time, maintain a reasonable neutrality seemed enough, but the case against school prayer brought in '62 by Madeleine Murray O'Hare changed that, by making it seem as if any offense to someone's sensibilities due to "entanglement", including an atheist's, was suspect. (She never managed to get "In God We Trust" off of the currency, though. She tried.)After that, the metaphor of the "wall of separation" really took off, although many of the most egregious cases are recent. Religion became similar to obscenity, insofar as complaints about it were taken as proof that the offense was in the expression, not in the restriction.... |
