Cite as: 505 U. S. 577 (1992)
Blackmun, J., concurring
against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between church and State.' " Everson, 330 U. S., at 16 (quoting Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 164 (1879)). The dissenters agreed: "The Amendment's purpose . . . was to create a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion." 330 U. S., at 31-32 (Rutledge, J., dissenting, joined by Frankfurter, Jackson, and Burton, JJ.).
In Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962), the Court considered for the first time the constitutionality of prayer in a public school. Students said aloud a short prayer selected by the State Board of Regents: " 'Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.' " Id., at 422. Justice Black, writing for the Court, again made clear that the First Amendment forbids the use of the power or prestige of the government to control, support, or influence the religious beliefs and practices of the American people. Although the prayer was "denominationally neutral" and "its observance on the part of the students [was] voluntary," id., at 430, the Court found that it violated this essential precept of the Establishment Clause.
A year later, the Court again invalidated government-sponsored prayer in public schools in School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203 (1963). In Schempp, the school day for Baltimore, Maryland, and Abington Township, Pennsylvania, students began with a reading from the Bible, or a recitation of the Lord's Prayer, or both. After a thorough review of the Court's prior Establishment Clause cases, the Court concluded:
organizations or groups and vice versa." Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S., at 15.
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