A longstanding consensus on how to accommodate religious beliefs in government settings is breaking down as the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to overturn longstanding precedent and allow greater role of religion in public life. Those were some of the observations of Nina Totenberg, the longtime legal affairs correspondent for NPR, at a forum on “The First Amendment for the 21st Century,” held Monday at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh in Squirrel Hill. “There are all kinds of gradations in between” the views that the government should prohibit any religious expression in public settings and that it should allow as much as possible without government actually endorsing religion, she said. Such views often conflict in battles over creche displays on public property, or the right of a prisoner or government worker to defy a dress code or hair code by wearing a turban or a beard for religious reasons. A hardening of positions in politics and the public, she said, is echoed on the Supreme Court, which has a 5-4 conservative-liberal split. “I don’t think we see a lot of gradations on the court at the moment,” said Ms. Totenberg. “We see more of one view or […]
