People v. Finkelstein

“ [L]aws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.” (15 The Writings of Thomas Jefferson [Memorial ed., 1904], p. 41.) And if the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (the “free exercise” clause) “has had unsettling effects on many customs and practices ”, specifically in reference to the First Amendment (the “establishment” clause), it is “ a process consistent with Jefferson’s precept ”1

Have the courts adopted this Jeffersonian principle? In the main, yes. Most times it has been a long, frustrating and not infrequently belittling battle of…