A few years ago, a student asked me a great question--why isn't there a right under the EC to be free from religion? The idea is that any religious expression in the public square is a deprivation of the citizens right to be free from religion.
What do the rest of you think about that?
We will talk about this again soon, but here is an excerpt of Justice Scalia's dissent in McCreary County (one of the Ten Commandment cases) in which he addresses this issue and compares the USA to France (link).
If nonreligious people should have a right to be free from religion, should religious people have a right to be free from nonreligion? How would we construct a public square that respected both of these calls for triumphalism? What would a pluralistic public square, one seeking to reflect the cultural and religious diversity of the local community, look like?
The web log for Prof. Duncan's Constitutional Law Classes at Nebraska Law-- "[U]nder our Constitution there can be no such thing as either a creditor or a debtor race. That concept is alien to the Constitution's focus upon the individual. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American. " -----Justice Antonin Scalia If you allow the government to take your liberty during times of crisis, it will create a crisis whenever it wishes to take your liberty.
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I. Tinker A student's right to speak (even on controversial subjects such as war) in the cafeteria, the playing field, or "on the...
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Monday August 28 : Handout on Moore v Harper (PDF has been emailed to you); Originalism vs. the "Living Constitution": Strau...
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Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop (art by Joshua Duncan) "We may not shelter in place when the C...
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