GOVT 252 Religion and the Law (RT)
Because the United States has been a religiously diverse country since its founding, American law has attempted to balance competing claims of religious liberty, equality, and fairness. The first two clauses of the Bill of Rights pertain specifically to religion, yet far from settling the issues of religious liberty and religious establishment, they have sparked centuries of debate. This course examines four aspects of the interplay between law and religion in the U.S. legal context: the conceptual relationship between legal and religious authority, the constitutional tradition of religious disestablishment, the shifting bounds of free exercise of religion in U.S. law, and the option of civil disobedience when law and religion conflict.