Abstract
Among the arguments against strict separation of church and state, the one with the greatest popular appeal is patriotic: re ligion, it is said, is at the foundation of our institutions, is in our people, is central to our heritage. Therefore, say many, do not interpret separation of church and state in such a way as to re move the many expressions of our national, our American, re ligious heritage. This linking of patriotism and religion echoed and re-echoed through the protests against the Supreme Court's decision in the Regent's Prayer case. The arguments of the defenders of the Lord's prayer and Bible reading in the schools, in the cases now before the Court, echo it once more. The other themes appealed to by those opposing the most strict position on separation—that of rights of the majority, that of hallowed traditions and customs of the people, that of social benefits of religion, that of allowable incidental help to religion—all are given fire, I believe, by their association with this one. The majority that claims its rights, for example, is the national majority, and the hallowed traditions are those of a religious nation and people. This theme, combined with conservative religion's feeling that it must have state-expression of religion to combat secular ism, gives the force to most of the arguments against strict separation. This theme seems to be the least tenable ground for qualifying the separation tradition, at the same time that it is the most powerful in the public forum. Therefore, singling it out, let us examine it. The American people—or a central segment of them—are caught in the conflict between two claims, that they held simul taneously before, without any strain: separation of church and state, and the foundation of our nation. Now they find these two themes, both warmly held, arrayed in opposition to each other in the controversies of the day: for and against released time instruction; for and against prayer and instruction; for and against prayer and ob servance in the public schools; for and against symbols in public life; for and against state aid to schools.
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