Constitutional horror: Clarence Thomas argues states can establish official religion

[yellowcanine]

80. No its not but but the precedent of application to the states is mostly settled.

The big case was the Warren Court case in 1962 banning prayer and bible reading in public schools. The legal reasoning behind applying the Establishment Clause to the states is embedded in the 14th amendment.

"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

This has been interpreted in numerous SCOTUS cases to mean that the Establishment Clause as well as all of the other protections under the Bill of Rights, apply to the states as well as Congress. It is indeed ironic that Clarence Thomas, a descendant of slaves, would be so ignorant about something based on the 14th Amendment, which was added mainly to prevent former Confederate States from denying the civil rights of former slaves. Indeed, the fight over school desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s would have been greatly compromised if states would have been allowed to support the religious "white academies" which were set up to help white parents keep their children out of integrated schools. A great deal of the effort to funnel state money into "charter schools" and private religious schools is based on similar sentiments, imo.