ABSTRACT
All governments have a policy on religion. On a basic level, governments need to choose between supporting it, regulating or restricting it, or being neutral. In practice, most governments have complex policies which include elements of all three of these options regarding various aspects of religion. This chapter considers government religion policy in four policy areas: official policy; supporting religion; regulating, restricting, or controlling all religion; and restricting minority religions. States with official religions usually declare this in their constitutions but can do so through some other means such as a concordant or a law. They can support, enforce, control, and regulate religion. In 1971, in the case of Lemon vs. Kurtzman, the US Supreme Court established rules to define the practical meaning of separation of religion and state in US law. One of the principles that the government must maintain, according to this ruling, is that a law cannot result in "excessive entanglement" between government and religion.
