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Peter J. Smith (George Washington University – Law School) & Robert W. Tuttle (George Washington University Law School) have posted Establishment Clause Mythology on SSRN. Here is the abstract: For 75 years, the Supreme Court’s opinions have reflected stark conflict between two competing narratives about the Establishment Clause’s meaning and legal foundation. One view holds that the Constitution requires a separation between church and state. The other view asserts that the government may promote religion. The former view—which we call separationism—is based on the framers’ understanding of the nature of civil government, and on a political theory of liberal pluralism. The latter view—which we call religionism—is usually grounded in tradition, and principally has its roots in the Second Great Awakening of the nineteenth century and its urge to transform political society to serve religion. This conflict has a definite trajectory. From the middle of the twentieth century until the 1980s, the separationist view almost always prevailed in the Court’s decisions. Starting in the 1980s, the alternative, religionist view began to displace the separationist view. This trend has recently accelerated. We seek to provide a comprehensive account of the development of the religionist view of the Establishment Clause. Proponents of […]