美國 憲法上의 政敎分離原則

초록

The Principle of Separation of Church and State in U.S. Constitution Lim, Ji-Bong* The First Amendment in U.S. Constitution, which came into the constitution by the constitutional revision in 1791, has the clause on the freedom of religion in it. Due to the clause, Congress can make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. We could tell from this that the freedom of religion in U.S. Constitution has two important contents; the principle of Separation of Church and State and Free Exercise of Religion. Between the two, analyzing major decisions by U.S. Supreme Court concerning the principle of Separation of Church and State in U.S. Constitution and inductively systematize the rules of law on the principle would be the aim of this study. The cases analyzed in this study are evenly selected among the major cases on the principle of separation of State and Church on a time basis. Those cases are Everson v. Board of Education in 1947 which declared constitutional the state statute authorizing the spending of tax-raised funds to pay the bus fares of parochial school children, Lemon v. Kurtzman in 1971 which suggested three part Lemon Test, Roemer v. Board of Public Works in 1976 in which annual subsidies to sectarian colleges were not regarded as excessive governmental entanglement, Lynch v. Donnelly in 1984 where the Supreme Court declared the establishment clause did not prohibit the inclusion of a nativity scene in a municipal Christmas display, Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987 where the Court declared a state may not mandate the teaching in elementary schools of "creation science" if evolutionary theory was also taught, and, finally, Lee v. Weisman in 1992 which declared unconstitutional giving religious invocations and benedictions at a public primary or secondary school graduation ceremony. By inductively systematizing the results of analyzing these cases above, this paper examines the relationships between the religion in the schools and the principle of Separation of Church and State as well as the relationships between the financial assistance to religious institutions and the principle. As a result, we could realize that the Court used three part Lemon test in the past which has been under attack by some alternatives such as Coercion Test which is considered more tolerant of government accomodations of religion.