ABSTRACT
Religious liberty has been called America's "first freedom," and rightly so. Religious pluralism in the United States would be impossible without wide latitude for religious beliefs and practices. From the beginning, the issues of church-state policy that have arisen from disagreements over the meaning of the First Amendment have included how to balance free exercise of religion with otherwise constitutional laws that interfere with it, and how to decide when government activities that somehow involve or even benefit religion amount to an unconstitutional establishment of religion. This chapter explores these two concerns separately, following the Supreme Court's own practice of fashioning precedents and complex tests that address "free exercise" of religion and "establishment" of religion as separate and independent concepts. It concludes by discussing a "free speech" alternative to the religion clauses, as well as the many ways free exercise and establishment interact and at times conflict.
