AMERICA'S CHRISTIAN HERITAGE HOMEPAGE
Week 3 - How we got off Track !
23. In 1947, under a New Jersey statute that allowed local school districts to fund the
transportation of children to and from schools, the Board of Education of Ewing Township
authorized reimbursement to parents forced to bus their children to school using regular
public transportation. Part of this money was to pay for the transportation of some children
to Catholic parochial schools and not just public schools.
24. In the case of Everson v. Board of Education, A local taxpayer filed suit, challenging the right
of the Board to reimburse parents of parochial school students. He argued that the statute
violated both the State and the Federal Constitutions. This court agreed and ruled that the
legislature did not have the authority to provide such reimbursements.
25. The court ignored the Constitution, American history, the overwhelming practices of the
Founding Fathers, Congressional papers and Acts as well as legal precedents and law
commentaries that would have supported the action by the township. They instead went
to an off-handed comment in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson and found that the statute
violated an imaginary �wall of separation between Church and State.� They stated : �The
'establishment of religion' clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a
state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one
religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence
a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a
belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing
religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any
amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions,
whatever they may be called, or whatever from they may adopt to teach or practice religion.
Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs
of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the
clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation
between Church and State.'
26. In Engel v. Vitale (1962), The court ruled that New York School children reciting a
generic prayer composed by the New York Educational Supervisory Board violated
the �Everson� standard of the supposed �constitutional wall of separation between
Church and State�.
27. The lone dissenter was Justice Potter Stewart, who wrote that in denying the �wish of
those schoolchildren to join in reciting this prayer,� the Court was denying them the
opportunity in �sharing the spiritual heritage of our nation.� Stewart continued, �I cannot
see how an �official religion� is established by letting those who want to say a prayer say it.�
28. This was followed in 1963 with Abington School District v. Schempp. In this case,
the Court struck down the voluntary practices of Bible reading and reciting the Lord�s
Prayer in public schools. In doing so, the Court eliminated practices that the founders
of the public school system considered to be indispensable to the highest welfare of
the students and �essential to the vitality of moral education.�
29. Justice Potter Stewart again dissented stating: �For a compulsory state educational
system so structures a child�s life that if religious exercises are held to be an
impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created
disadvantage. Viewed in this light, permission of such exercises for those who want
them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And
a refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen not as the realization of state
neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.�
30. A commentary on the writing of Horace Mann, the father of public education, noted
that the entire curriculum of the public schools centered on the general assumptions
of God�s existence, the sense of His universe, and the spirituality of human nature.
Mann stated that �The system earnestly inculcates all Christian morals; it founds its
morals on the basis of religion, it welcomes the religion of the Bible; and in receiving
the Bible it allows it to speak for itself.�
31. Murray v. Curlett (1963) the issue was a Baltimore City Schools requirement that
each class day begin with a "reading, without comment, of a chapter of the Holy Bible
and/or of the Lord's Prayer." The famous atheist activist, Madalyn Murray (who later
became O'Hare), brought the suit on behalf of her son, William.
32. An 8-1 majority of the Court found that such state-sanctioned Bible readings were a
violation of the Establishment Clause. The case was little more than a rehearing of
Engel, so it is probable that the justices from the majority of that case wished to
clarify and instruct in a new decision. In his opinion, Justice Clark did just that.
He wrote that "to withstand the structures of the Establishment Clause there must be
a secular legislative purpose and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion.".