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Article: Completing the constitution: enforcement of the religion clauses against the states under the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Article from:
- Journal of Church and State
- Article date:
- June 22, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 J.M. Dawson Studies in Church and State. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Suppose the Alabama legislature, responding to the will of the majority, decided to make Christianity the official religion of the state. Suppose the Texas legislature voted to deny to Texans the right to criticize the government. What if Kentucky required anyone running for public office to profess a belief in the deity of Christ? Or what if Arizona outlawed the religion of Scientology within its borders? Suppose Mississippi passed a law requiting "separate but equal" public schools for whites and African Americans.
Of course any of these laws, presumably, would be struck down as violations of the U.S. Constitution because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that ...