The Supreme Court and Religion

Taxes and the Church.

The Court continued to wrestle with religious issues during the decade. In 1970 the Court upheld the right of New York State to grant tax exemptions for church property used for religious purposes. This had national application since all fifty states and the District of Columbia gave such exemptions. It was estimated that this affected over seventy billion dollars worth of property in the nation.

Rights of Religious Belief.

Issues in education continued to appear before the Court. In 1971 the Court upheld a decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court which struck down a state law requiring Amish families to send their children to schools until they were sixteen. The Court ruled that the Amish were exempt from that law after their children completed the eighth grade. The three-hundred-year history of the educational practices of that group demonstrated that limited education was a religious...

[The entire page is 295 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass