2017.2

Symposium: Must All Free Democratic Governments Forswear Religion?

At bottom, this symposium attempts to answer one of the thorniest questions in constitutional theory: What is the role of religion in a constitutional democracy? At least in the abstract, American constitutional law has always answered this question by severing the Priest from the Prosecutor, and separating Liturgies from Legislation. This collection of intellectual heavyweights from the AALS's Section on Law & Religion questions whether this social firewall is absolutely necessary to a healthy, free constitutional democracy. The answer is far from clear. But this is to be expected with a question that sits at the intersection of who we are as humans and as Citizens: Does our Government get to tell us who we should be? Our hope is that the scholarship produced by the thinkers in this issue will get us one step closer to an answer. 

The papers in this issue are the result of the Section's panel discussion at the AALS's Annual Conference, held in 2017 in San Francisco, California.

Yaniv Roznai

Jaclyn L. Neo

Frank S. Ravitch

Bruce Ledewitz

Gabor Halmai

Alan Brownstein