I think it's fairly safe to say that Tocueville would not recognize the role religion plays, or doesn't play, in modern America. That there is no active governmental movement that is hostile to religion would surprise quite a few people, on the left and right.
---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Ed Darrell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 15:40:03 -0800 (PST) >It seems to me that by the standards deTocqueville used, and especially by the >standards cited by Justice Brewer's opinion in Holy Trinity, we are much more >tolerant of religious expression than in the past. For example we now have >"In God We Trust" on our coins, and also as an official motto of the nation. >Most of the attempts to formalize school prayer took place after 1945. The >placement of the Ten Commandments monuments, regardless the ultimate >disposition of the cases on their legality, were almost without exception >after the release of DeMille's movie, "The Ten Commandments," in the early >1950s. > >Certainly there is no active move on the part of government to be hostile to >religion, and there are many tiny moves to go overboard in accommodation to >the point of violating the establishment clause. I think a careful analysis >would show no hostility toward religion, but instead an accommodation of >religious expression that occasionally strays into establishment. > >About the only thing that's changed from deTocqueville's visit is that despite >a broader tolerance of religious expression, a substantial minority of people >claim they are being discriminated against because they want more than the law >has yet allowed. > >Ed Darrell >Dallas > >Richard Dougherty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Well, yes, but not in a political order where the government -- especially the >judiciary -- is seen by many as openly hostile to religion; this is a very >different America from the one Tocqueville observed. > >Richard Dougherty > _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
