Religious Freedom

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Antonin Scalia

Antonin Gregory Scalia (1936-2016) was an American jurist who served as the Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia has been described as the intellectual anchor of the Court’s conservative wing…

In his quarter-century on the Court, Scalia staked out a conservative ideology in his opinions, advocating textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation. He was a strong defender of the powers of the executive branch, believing presidential power should be paramount in many areas. He opposed affirmative action and other policies that treat minorities as groups. He filed separate opinions in large numbers of cases, and, in his minority opinions, often castigated the Court’s majority in scathing language.

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Establishment Clause

The establishment clause arose during James Madison’s efforts to have the constitution ratified. Virginia had disestablished the gentry-supported Church of England during and after the American Revolution. This left the Baptists in a position of political influence. Col. Thomas Barber, an opponent of the constitution in Madison’s home of Orange County, Virginia, began a campaign for election to the state ratifying convention. He garnered support among the local Baptists by warning them that the constitution had no safeguard against creating a new national church. To head off Barber’s challenge, Madison met with influential Baptist preacher John Leland and promised that, in exchange for Leland’s support of ratification, he would sponsor several amendments that were ultimately combined into the First Amendment. The Establishment Clause was established mainly as consensus among all of the religious groups in American during 1787, to prevent one religion from having too much influence.

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