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By Saige Elison, Levi Ho, Ester Zotera, and Abagail Berglund

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"A student (Jerome Kunkel) at a Catholic school in Kentucky has sued the Northern Kentucky Health Department, claiming it violated his First Amendment rights by barring him from playing basketball because he refused to be vaccinated against chickenpox. The lawsuit argues that the action violates his right to freedom of religion. Being vaccinated, it contends, would go against Mr. Kunkel’s religious beliefs as a practicing Catholic, because the vaccine contains 'aborted fetal cells.'” - pending case
A Latin cross stands 40 feet tall on public land in Maryland. Will the Supreme Court justices decide the ultimate symbol to remain despite its origin as the centerpiece of Christian theology because a cross designated as a war memorial acquires “an independent secular meaning?” - pending case

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In 1785, James Madison went against state support of Christian religious practices. He would then go on to drafting the First Amendment that would protect individual liberties including freedom of religion, speech, press, and the right to assemble and petition the government. It was adopted on December 15, 1791 and established the separation of church and state prohibiting the government to make any law "respecting an establishment of religion."

The framers of the Constitution favored a neutral posture toward religion. "The principle of separating church from state was integral to the framers’ understanding of religious freedom. They believed that any governmental intervention in the religious affairs of citizens would necessarily infringe on their religious freedom."

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First Amendment
Origins & 2
Pivotal Points
Modern Issues 1, 2

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the freedom of religion is named in the first Amendment that was written in 1791 and is divided in two parts:

Establishment clause that say "congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion"
Free exercise clause that say "prohibiting the free exercise
thereof..."

The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, extended religious freedom by preventing states from enacting laws that would advance or inhibit any one religion.

Reynolds v. United States (1878): This Supreme Court case tested the limits of religious liberty by upholding a federal law banning polygamy. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment forbids government from regulating belief but not from actions such as marriage.

Braunfeld v. Brown (1961): The Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring stores to close on Sundays, even though Orthodox Jews argued the law was unfair to them since their religion required them to close their stores on Saturdays as well.

Sherbert v. Verner (1963): The Supreme Court ruled that states could not require a person to abandon their religious beliefs in order to receive benefits. In this case, Adell Sherbert, a Seventh-day Adventist, worked in a textile mill. When her employer switched from a five-day to six-day workweek, she was fired for refusing to work on Saturdays. When she applied for unemployment compensation, a South Carolina court denied her claim.

Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971): This Supreme Court decision struck down a Pennsylvania law allowing the state to reimburse Catholic schools for the salaries of teachers who taught in those schools. This Supreme Court case established the “Lemon Test” for determining when a state or federal law violates the Establishment Clause—that’s the part of the First Amendment that prohibits the government from declaring or financially supporting a state religion.

Ten Commandments Cases (2005): In 2005, the Supreme Court came to seemingly contradictory decisions in two cases involving the display of the Ten Commandments on public property. In the first case, Van Orden v. Perry, the Supreme Court ruled that the display of a six-foot Ten Commandments monument at the Texas State Capital was constitutional. In McCreary County v. ACLU, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that two large, framed copies of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courthouses violated the First Amendment.

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In 2017, President Trump set travel bans that would discriminate against the muslim community and nations and would violate the First Amendment's Establishment clause.

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"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Description: The First Amendment pertaining to freedom of religion described a separation of church and state and prohibits the establishment or enforcement of a religion on a state or the nation. This includes things such as "blue laws" which prohibited the sale of liquor on Sunday.