Discussing cases: Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985) and Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, 827 F.2d 684 (11th Cir. 1987). Based on the author's thesis (doctoral - Indiana University, 2009) issued under title: Establish no religion : faith, law, and public education in Mobile, Alabama, 1981-1987. Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents:
Conservatism and the constitution -- Massive resistance -- The moral majority of Alabamians -- Justice made political -- Accommodation -- Showdown -- The trouble with secularism -- Religion by any other name -- The constitution and the people.
Summary:
"The Christian Right of the 1980s forged its political identity largely in response to what it perceived as liberal ́judicial activism.́ Robert Daniel Rubin tells this story as it played out in Mobile, Alabama. There, a community conflict pitted a group of conservative evangelicals, a sympathetic federal judge, and a handful of conservative intellectuals against a religious agnostic opposed to prayer in schools, and a school system accused of promoting a religion called ́secular humanism.́ The twists in the Mobile conflict speak to the changes and continuities that marked the relationship of 1980ś religious conservatism to democracy, the courts, and the Constitution. By alternately focusing its gaze on the local conflict and related events in Washington, DC, this book weaves a captivating narrative. Historians, political scientists, and constitutional lawyers will find, in Rubińs study, a challenging new perspective on the history of the Christian Right in the United States." --Book jacket and page i.
Series:
Cambridge historical studies in American law and society
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.