Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Court's new Religion Clauses case
Melissa Rogers (Wake Forest) has some thoughts about the Court's grant in the case Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation, which could be the Roberts Court's first foray into the Religion Clauses fever swamp. In her view, a decision by the Court to limit "taxpayer standing" in Establishment Clause cases would reflect a decision not to enforce the Clause, and "[i]f we fail to enforce the Establishment Clause adequately, these values will suffer and the quality of religious liberty will be diminished." I am inclined to disagree. That is, while I agree entirely that the Establishment Clause, properly understood, serves religious freedom in important ways, it is not obvious to me why enforcement the Establishment Clause -- unlike, say, the Free Speech Clause, or the Commerce Clause -- requires the Court to confer standing on claimants who have not suffered the injury-in-fact that we require in every other federal context.
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2006/12/the_courts_new_.html