From the inbox: Can a church-affiliated group conduct after-school Bible study classes in a public school without running afoul of the U.S. Constitution? That depends. The First Amendment to the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It was not the clearest statement ever. As legal scholar Kenneth Lawson wrote in a 1968 University of Baltimore law school review article “…determination of the scope of the First Amendment’s religion clause requires a determination of the intent of the first Congress, as well as the intent of the citizens of the states that ratified it.” Courts generally have read the First Amendment to require separation of church and state. In a landmark 1962 case, the Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional for a state to compose an official state prayer and require children to recite it in school, even if the prayer was denominationally neutral. The official prayer came too close to “an establishment of religion” for the high court to accept. The Maryland Constitution’s Declaration of Rights states that nothing prohibits or requires invoking the aid of God or a Supreme Being in schools, among other locations. […]
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