Posted on by L&R Forum

Legal Spirits 055: Speaker Mike Johnson on the Separation of Church and State

Speaker Mike Johnson on CNBC last month

In a TV interview last month, House Speaker Mike Johnson raised eyebrows by asserting that Framers welcomed religion in public life and that the Establishment Clause protects religion from the encroachment of government, not the other way around. In this podcast, we show how Johnson was both right and wrong. Many Framers shared his view, but others did not. The controversy over Johnson’s comments is just the latest episode in a continuing debate over the meaning of religious liberty. When we argue about the past, we are really arguing about what our country should be, today. Listen in!

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Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

“Establishment as Tradition” in the Yale Law Journal Forum

My essay, Establishment as Tradition, has just come out in the Yale Law Journal Forum, together with very worthwhile pieces by Professor Michael Stokes Paulsen and Professor Stephanie Barclay. These are together collected under the title, “The Religion Clauses Post-Kennedy.”

My piece is another sketch in an ongoing series of illustrations of traditionalism as an independent constitutional theory, addressing specific issues about its relationship to religion and establishment. Delighted to see traditionalism come to the YLJ.