Analyst's note: No doubt we will be reading more about this critical issue.
Ashby D Boyle II, JD, PhD, with a Wall Street-based law practice, has returned to Yale after two decades away, to re-write as a book his Yale dissertation of twenty years ago on the Supreme Court’s religion jurisprudence. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Boyle served at the Court as a law clerk. He will be writing a regular column for Meridian called Adventures at Yale.
We run this article in celebration of Constitution Day.
Why Religious Freedom in America Is At Risk
I arrived at the United States Supreme Court having just completed a dissertation on the Court’s Religion Clauses of the First Amendment.
I arrived with “a bee in my bonnet,” an enduring fascination of my Yale research: why did our Bill of Rights frequently fail to protect religious liberty?
It is a genuine puzzle. While the Constitution is clear that religion will be protected through the First Amendment, the Court from its creation has experienced repeated failures. From so often failing throughout its history to do its job, religion was constantly misunderstood and disrespected by the Court.
The Court’s Problem: Protecting the Religion Clauses Despite Secular Precedents
In working on this puzzle, I uncovered a pattern in Court religion decisions of zig-zags and flip-flops. [....]
