The moral dilemma I will analyze is the question of the separation of Church and State in schools. The First Amendment of the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” promoting religious liberty and preventing government obstruction of the right of citizens to freely practice religion . Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island on the basis of religious toleration, was one of the first to realize the idea of “'a wall or hedge of separation' between the 'wild of the world' and 'the church garden,'” in fear of government involvement or church corruption. Then in 1802 Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association declaring that by adopting the Establishment Clause, the American people had built the wall between church and state. Both Thomas Jefferson and James Maidson fought to dismantle the Anglican Church in Virginia with the help of Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and other opposing faiths. They argued that having an established church, and forcing Virginia citizens to support a faith they didn't believe in with taxes, was a violation of their natural right to religious freedom. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe case of Everson vs. Board of Education (1947), was one of the first in which the court had to interpret the meaning of the Establishment Clause. The ruling in this case determined that the allocation of fees to transport students to religious schools was constitutional based on the premise that it did not breach the separation wall and that the state of “New Jersey cannot. . . exclude individuals. . . because of their faith, or lack thereof, to receive the benefits of public welfare legislation.” In the 1963 case Abington School District v. Schempp, the Supreme Court banned the reading of the Bible and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer in public schools, ruling that it violated the Establishment Clause. The Court subsequently established a test for violations of the Establishment Clause in Lemon vs. Kurtzman (1971), in which he established that “To be constitutional a law must have 'a secular legislative purpose,' must have principal effects that neither advance nor inhibit religion, and must not promote 'excessive government involvement in religion.' Due to various disagreements in Allegheny County v. American Civil Liberties Union (1989), Justice Anthony M. Kennedy led a panel to develop a duress test by stating that the government does not violate the clause unless it directly aids the religion in favor of the creation of a state church or have involved or forced citizens into religion against their will. After the case of Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), Justice Sandra Day O'Connor proposed an approval test that is often involved in religious window dressing. The neutrality test requires that the government treat religious groups the same as any other group, as was invoked in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris (2002) in which it was determined that school vouchers provided to needy individuals did not impede the establishment clause because it was an individual choice which school to attend, whether it was public, private, secular or religious. From America's founding doctrines to the present day, religion has played a role in this country's education, but the Establishment Clause and the separation of church and state, especially in schools, violate our right to religious freedom . This is what keeps the issue of separation of church and state in schools.
tags