False Facts and Holy War: How the Supreme Courtts Establishment Clause Cases Fuel Religious Conflict

Abstract

In the area of government religious speech, the opinions of the Supreme Court sometimes contain facts that seem plausible but are false. The Court seems to offer these in an attempt to reduce religious tension in our society. Such attempts have only resulted in an increase in conflict, because of the inevitable nature of advocacy within a constitutional system. This paper proposes that it is the very attempt to resolve religious disputes by presenting false facts that intensifies conflict. Ideologically opposing forces seize each offered settlement from the Court as a tool to advance their own position: either the increase or elimination of government religious speech. In failing to accept that religious conflict is inevitable in a free society, the Court's promulgation of false facts has merely exacerbated that conflict. Only a frank recognition of the problem and a deliberate incorporation of a time-based distinction into standing doctrine based on time offers any real hope of establishing peace concerning the proper place of religion in the public life of the United States.