Civil Rights And Liberties Case Analysis

Chirag N. Rao Political Science Essay#2, Topic= the Civil Rights and the Liberties Scenarios, Due= Thursday, February 19th, 2015 The hearing of an appeal to post Ten Commandments on the walls of a public or government building is an interesting case, whose relevance goes back to the famous phrase, namely, “Separation of Church and State”. Roots of this phrase can be traced all the way back to a letter written by Thomas Jefferson in January of 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. Though the First Amendment clause against establishment of religion by law was to ensure that there was separation between religion and government, various courts to this day are still hearing cases and this remain an ongoing subject of interpretation and perspectives. I believe this is so because the various court decisions and legislation such as First Amendment, Lemon Test, Civil Rights and Liberties make it ambivalent between separation of religion and that of freedom to practice religion. I believe the best way to arrive at a decision is to analyze the relevance of each one of …show more content…
Two prominent landmark cases that can be taken into consideration are namely Engel v. Vitale 370 U.S. 421 (1962) and Lemon v. Kurtzman 403 U.S. 602 (1971). The first case, Engel v. Vitale is a case wherein a group of families in New York complained that the voluntary prayer in the mornings violated their religious beliefs. The court ruled through a 6-1 vote that it is unconstitutional for state to compose a prayer and encourage its recitation in public schools as it violated the Establishment Clause. Interestingly the court rejected the defendants even though the prayer was voluntary and did not subscribe to any specific religion. They found that the mere introduction of religion through prayer was sufficient to establish