Getting it Right on Religion

Melissa Rogers, visiting professor of religion and public policy at Wake Forest University, has written the best assessment of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's influence on church/state issues that I have seen. In an article entitled, "O'Connor Got it Right on Religion" Rogers says:

Justice O'Connor understood that religion has a key role to play in public life, but that it is religious individuals and groups that must control religious expression, not the government. Importantly, she recognized that allowing the government to promote religion not only violates the rights of conscience of those who don't claim a faith, but also poses grave dangers for the faith that is favored. In McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, the Kentucky Ten Commandments decision handed down this week, Justice O'Connor wrote in a concurring opinion: "Voluntary religious belief and expression may be as threatened when government takes the mantle of religion upon itself as when government directly interferes with private religious practices. When the government associates one set of religious beliefs with the state and identifies nonadherents as outsiders, it encroaches upon the individual's decision about whether and how to worship."