More recently, in 1973, the Court articulated a three-part test, called the Lemon test, after the case in which the Court laid it out. Under the Lemon test, governmental action runs afoul of the First Amendment if it has a primary purpose or effect of advancing religion, or if it results in excessive governmental entanglement in religion.
you missed the other part of the lemon test: the law has to have a legitimate and
secular purpose.
also, it's "advancing or inhibiting." government cannot inhibit religion, either.
The concern of "lawmakers" expressed in the quote from the OP that "children and losing their grasp on one of Western civilization's most influential texts" strongly suggests to me, however, that the real purpose here is to advance a particular religion.
it does yes. but secular purpose can be found in reading the bible -- as well as the qu'ran, the bhagavad-gita, tao te ching, and homer. the wording that they're using is meant to specifically imply a secular purpose. it's saying: "yes, we know about the lemon test."
however, the issue here is basically that this is propping up ONE text. and that one text doesn't really need propping up. i promise that more kids have read parts of the bible than have read parts of the qu'ran. it's not like a significant percentage of the population hasn't been exposed to this "influential text," otherwise, it wouldn't be influential.
The second question is whether the law has an effect of advancing religion. Obviously, generally bible study courses have an effect of advancing religion, that's why churches have them. However, it's conceivable that the state could structure the course in a way, as others have suggested, so that the courses are instructing rather than preaching. However, given that the law by its terms only provides funding for bible studies, it's hard to see how the state can argue that the statute doesn't aid one religion over another.
that's a good observation. the establishment comes down to the issue of HOW the course is taught, and since the law allows for establishment...
now, i go to a state university. i did, in fact, take a class on the bible. it was treated as literature, and studied instead of preached. it really threw a lot of the religious-types for a loop -- alot of their ideas didn't fly upon close examination.
don't know what Chief Justice Roberts's and Jusitice Alito's views are on the Establishment Clause. This case would give them a perfect opportunity to take the Court's analysis in a different direction if they wanted to.
*worries*
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