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The Establishment Clause Explained

Everyone knows that in the United States, Church and State are separate. The government can’t “establish” a religion. But what does that really mean? Before America’s independence the government did plenty of things to “establish” religion. Like force people to go church, pay the salary of ministers, and limit the right to vote to church members. But after independence, all of that came to an end. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause said that the government couldn’t establish religion any more. It couldn’t force people to go to church, and it couldn’t stop people from going to church either. Americans were free to worship God or not. That’s how the Establishment Clause was understood for almost 200 years. But in 1971, judges abandoned this history and made up a new test for interpreting the Establishment Clause. It's called the Lemon test. The problem is, the Lemon test is a vague standard that ignores history and invites some really crazy lawsuits. Like lawsuits forcing governments to knock down memorials to fallen soldiers and police officers. And banning school choirs from singing traditional Christmas carols. And requiring a nativity or menorah to be "balanced" by something non-religious like elves or reindeer. These lawsuits are not just silly, they erode our culture. The nation’s founders had no problem with religious symbols in the public square. Why? Because the government isn’t telling anyone who to worship or how to worship. It is simply recognizing that religion is a normal part of human culture—and letting people express themselves in the public square. That is something that benefits us all. Justice Scalia famously said that the Lemon test is like zombie in a late-night horror movie that haunts our public square and makes us afraid of religious symbols. It's time to bury that monster for good and let judges get back to what really works: an Establishment Clause that guarantees everyone’s freedom to worship or not as they see fit, but doesn’t try to scrub every trace of religion from the public square.