User:Hrjones2pstcc/sandbox

Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which applied the Establishment Clause in the country's Bill of Rights to State law.[1] Prior to this decision, the First Amendment's words, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"[2] imposed limits only on the federal government, while many states continued to grant certain religious denominations legislative or effective privileges.[3] This was the first Supreme Court case incorporating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as binding upon the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."No provision of the Constitution," Justice Wiley Rutledge opined in Everson v, Board of Education (1947), "is more closely tied to or given content by its generating history than the religious clause of the First Amendment." The decision in Everson marked a turning point in the interpretation and application of disestablishment law in the modern era.[4]

The case was brought by a New Jersey taxpayer against a tax-funded school district that provided reimbursement to parents of both public and private schooled people taking the public transportation system to school. The taxpayer contended reimbursement given for children attending private religious schools violated the constitutional prohibition against state support of religion, and the use of taxpayer funds to do so violated the Due Process Clause. The Justices were split over the question whether the New Jersey policy constituted support of religion, with the majority concluding these reimbursements were "separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function" that they did not violate the constitution.[5] Both affirming and dissenting Justices, however, were decisive that the Constitution required a sharp separation between government and religion and their strongly worded opinions paved the way to a series of later court decisions that taken together brought about profound changes in legislation, public education, and other policies involving matters of religion.[3] Both Justice Hugo Black's majority opinion and Justice Wiley Rutledge's dissent defined the First Amendment religious clause in terms of a "wall of separation between church and state".[6][7]

Clark v. Community for Non-Violence

Majority Opinion Justice Byron Whitewrote the majority opinion. He addressed the important topic of neutrality of the regulation by stating

The requirement that the regulation be content-neutral is clearly satisfied. The courts below accepted that view, and it is not disputed here that the prohibition on camping, and on sleeping specifically, is content-neutral and is not being applied because of disagreement with the message presented. Neither was the regulation faulted, nor could it be, on the ground that without overnight sleeping the plight of the homeless could not be communicated in other ways. The regulation otherwise left the demonstration intact, with its symbolic city, signs, and the presence of those who were willing to take their turns in a day-and-night vigil. Respondents do not suggest that there was, or is, any barrier to delivering to the media, or to the public by other means, the intended message concerning the plight of the homeless.[1] '''He noted that symbolic expression is subject to reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. ''' Justice White also makes mention of how important the O'Brien Test was in deciding this case. The O’Brien Test being a tool of the court established in United States v. O'Brien,[17] that determines whether governmental regulation involving symbolic speech can be justified. The restrictions of time, place, and manner can be allowed if they are (a) narrowly tailored (b) serve a substantial governmental interest and (c) there are alternative channels to communicate the information.[17]

Contrary to the conclusion of the Court of Appeals, the foregoing analysis demonstrates that the Park Service regulation is sustainable under the four-factor standard of United States v. O'Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968), for validating a regulation of expressive conduct, which, in the last analysis is little, if any, different from the standard applied to time, place, or manner restrictions.[1]

Justice White also makes clear that in the view of the majority the act of sleeping holds little value in being considered an act of expression.

In the first place, we seriously doubt that the First Amendment requires the Park Service to permit a demonstration in Lafayette Park and the Mall involving a 24-hour vigil and the erection of tents to accommodate 150 people. Furthermore, although we have assumed for present purposes that the sleeping banned in this case would have an expressive element, it is evident that its major value to this demonstration would be facilitative.[1]