ABSTRACT

Although the United States, like a number of countries throughout the world, attempted to ensure the separation of church and state through constitutional means, it may be argued that this delineation has done little to stem the flow of legal challenges (Murray 2008). Historically, these challenges revolve around one’s First Amendment right to freedom of religion and involve a judicial determination of the extent to which this guarantee should prevail when placed in conflict with other constitutional rights, such as freedom of expression and assembly (Blakeman and Greco 2004). These constitutionally based challenges expanded over the years to include a significant number of criminal and civil cases involving the intersection of religion and a variety of diverse issues including education (Moshman 1990), the right to refuse medical treatment (Anderson 1983), and mental health (Behnke 2012).