Title: The Radicalization of Establishment Clause Jurisprudence
Abstract: There are two central issues at the core of Establishment Clause jurisprudence: (1) the intelligibility of the distinction between the religious and the secular, and (2) the intelligibility of the concept of governmental neutrality. Our interpretive approach to the Establishment Clause depends upon the premise that we can distinguish clearly between religion and non-religion, and upon the premise that government can be truly neutral among different religions and between religion and non-religion. The Christian Right’s radicalization of Establishment Clause jurisprudence is the claim that the very attempt to be neutral between religion and non-religion is itself a religious position and thus violates Establishment Clause prohibitions. It is, more specifically, the claim that purported neutrality between the religious and the secular is itself a secular position, that secularism is what the Christian Right calls secular humanism, that secular humanism is itself a religion, that government endorsement and advancement of secular humanism thus contravenes the Establishment Clause, and that, consequently, neutrality itself violates the Establishment Clause. The burden of this paper is to dissect and challenge that radical challenge itself by arguing that because accepting the radicalization of Establishment Clause jurisprudence undermines the intelligibility of the religion clauses, affirming that intelligibility requires rejecting the radical challenge.
Publication Year: 2010
Publication Date: 2010-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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