Guest Editorial: The Status of the First Amendment's Religion Clauses: Some Reflections on Lines and Limits

Abstract

Those among us who are students of government and politics in general, and of the Constitution and its theory, history, and law in particular, indubitably rejoice in being able to stipulate that at least some aspects of our fundamental document are evidently complied with more or less felicitously, even freely, and more or less readily, both in spirit and in letter, by both the private and the governmental sector, if not necessarily always evenly or equally. Although some may disagree, I, for one, am persuaded that, by and large, the basic guarantees of our Bill of Rights—the one hundred ninetieth anni versary of whose adoption we shall honor and observe next year— are in sound health, notwithstanding sporadic and no doubt contin uing assaults upon sundry of its provisions. I am also persuaded that for its specific language and psychological entity a good many