Login | October 01, 2019 university of Massachusetts Lowell (THE CONVERSATION) A movement for religious rights is transforming the place of religion in American public life. From the 1960s until very recently, liberals successfully argued at the Supreme Court that the tyranny of the majority cannot define the lives and experiences of secular citizens. For decades, the court regularly ruled that laws imposed by local majorities enforcing school prayer or religious displays on government property violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which has been interpreted to mean the government is prohibited from endorsing religion or favoring one religion over another. Those decisions meant that the rights of the non-Christian minority defined the public place of religion in the U.S. But in the last decade, the reversal of power between religious and secular sides of American culture created a new self-perception among Christians as a distinct minority group. More importantly for legal proceedings, this led to a new strategy: They argue that they are now the minority group whose rights demand protection under the Constitution. Rise of the Christian minority Recent Supreme Court rulings demonstrate that the justices tend to agree. Three major religion cases in 2017, 2018 […]
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