Church, State and the Lemon Test

THE FIRST AMENDMENT to the United States’ Constitution contains the Establishment Clause, which states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”  Heated debates over the length to which the Establishment Clause prohibits or permits holiday displays on government property often arise at Christmastime.  With the winter-holiday season upon us, I thought it helpful to briefly discuss the US Supreme Court’s 1971 decision that created the legal test applied to analyze whether a public entity violates, or doesn’t violate, the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

Though the US Supreme Court has heard many cases recently concerning the use of religious symbols in public holiday displays, all Establishment Clause roads lead back to the Court’s decision of Lemon v. Kurtzman.  In that opinion, the US Supreme Court ruled that a Pennsylvania and Rhode Island law, both of which permitted the state to reimburse private religious schools for salaries and expenses for teachers who taught secular material to students, violated the Establishment Clause. 

In making its ruling, the Court created the “Lemon test,” which creates the rules for legislation and state actions that concern religion.  The test has the following three prongs:

1. The government’s action must have a secular legislative purpose;
2. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
3. The government's action must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion.

A violation of any one of these prongs is a violation of the Establishment Clause.  The “Lemon Test” attempts to strike a balance between people’s individual freedoms of religion and the Constitution’s prohibition against governmental religious establishment. 

But in the end our holiday celebrations, religious or otherwise, shouldn’t be about material pageantry anyway: they should be a joyful reaffirmation of our faith with friends and family.

Happy Holidays everyone!

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Trent Latta is an attorney and current member of Kirkland’s Cultural Council.  He may be reached at tlatta@mcdougaldlaw.com.