Endorsement test
the separation between state and religion as tested by the United States Supreme Court
The endorsement test proposed by United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in the 1984 case of Lynch v. Donnelly asks whether a particular government action amounts to an endorsement of religion, thus violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. According to the test, a government action is invalid if it creates a perception in the mind of a reasonable observer that the government is either endorsing or disapproving of religion.
O'Connor wrote:
The Establishment Clause prohibits government from making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community. Government can run afoul of that prohibition…[by] endorsement or disapproval of religion. Endorsement sends a message to nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. [...] The proper inquiry under the purpose prong of Lemon, I submit, is whether the government intends to convey a message of endorsement or disapproval of religion.
O’Connor’s endorsement test has, on occasion, been subsumed into the Lemon test. In the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals case Doe v. Elmbrook School District (2012) for example the Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, decided by a vote of 7-3, that a school’s practice of holding graduation ceremonies in an evangelical church violated the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
“Endorsement test” enters the record as the separation between state and religion as tested by the United States Supreme Court. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Endorsement, test and separation can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 15, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q5376405. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1984 and 2012.
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