Accommodationism

Mark Noll and Luke E. Harlow noted (13 September 2007, “Religion and American Politics: From the Colonial Period to the Present”,. Oxford University Press. p. 82):

“The accommodationist perspective emphasizes rather that the First Amendment was clearly not intended to be antireligious–indeed, as already suggested, it was drafted precisely to protect the various religious practices of the states, including preferential establishments in some of them. Accommodationists therefore reinterpret the First Amendment to make of religious liberty a positive right, the exercise of which is to be encouraged by the government. By the same token, they believe that the First Amendment excludes only the direct establishment of, or preferential treatment for, a particular religion. Indeed, government should facilitate the practice of religion by both individuals and collectivities as essential to the common good. This position is very different from that of the separationists and leads to markedly different contemporary policies and practices. In addition, as the point of departure for historical interpretation, it focuses attention upon the residual religious quality of this founding period, which was hardly secularist. The same Congress that proposed the First Amendment was opened with prayer and named a chaplain. Indeed, most of the early presidents declared occasional days of thanksgiving–and even of humiliation. Provision was made for support of religion in western lands. And, in time, the resources of religious groups were utilized in making government policy for relations with Native Americans. In sum, accommodationists consider that the operative ideal of the early republic was a nonpreferentialist posture of support for religion on the part of the government. In turn, that seems to point toward a modern ideal of accommodation of government to religion in ways that secure the greater common civil good as well as serve the spiritual ends of numbers of citizens.”

Alexis de Tocqueville observed:

“The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due to the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man…. Moreover, all the sects of the United States are comprised within the great unity of Christianity, and Christian morality is everywhere the same…. Christianity, therefore, reigns without obstacle, by universal consent; the consequence is … that every principle of the moral world is fixed and determinate, although the political world is abandoned to the debates and experiments of men.” (Tocqueville 1945, 314- 15).

Richard John Neuhaus stated:

“Politics derives its directions from the ethos, from the cultural sensibilities that are the context of political action. The cultural context is shaped by our moral judgments and intuitions about how the world and how it ought to be. Again, for the great majority of Americans such moral judgments and intuitions are inseparable from religious belief. Perhaps this is true not jus of the majority but of all of us, whether or not we call our ultimate values religious. In any event, whether it is called the Judeo-Christian etehic, or Christianity,… it is the dynamic of religion that holds the promise of binding together [religare] a nation in a way that may more nearly approximate civitas (1984, 60).

William O. Douglas, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, stated in his ruling:

We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. We guarantee the freedom to worship as one chooses. We make room for as wide a variety of beliefs and creeds as the spiritual needs of man deem necessary. We sponsor an attitude on the part of government that shows no partiality to any one group and that lets each flourish according to the zeal of its adherents and the appeal of its dogma. When the state [p314] encourages religious instruction or cooperates with religious authorities by adjusting the schedule of public events to sectarian needs, it follows the best of our traditions. For it then respects the religious nature of our people and accommodates the public service to their spiritual needs. (Reports 343 U.S. 310 [1952])

In the U.S., likewise, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled with an accommodationist outcome in Everson v. Board of Education, Zorach v. Clauson, McGowan v. Maryland, Epperson v. Arkansas, Board of Education v. Allen, Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, Tilton v. Richardson, Roemer v. Board of Public Works of Maryland, CPERL v. Regan, Widmar v. Vincent, Larson v. Valente, United States v. Lee, Mueller v. Allen, Marsh v. Chambers, Lynch v. Donnelly, Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor, Bowen v. Roy, Witters v. Washington Department of Services for the Blind, Goldman v. Weinberger, Corp. of Presiding Bishop v. Amos, Bowen v. Kendrick, Employment Division v. Smith, Hernandez v. Commissioner, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Board of Equalization of California, Westside Community Board of Education v. Mergens, Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, Capitol Square Review & Advisory Board v. Pinette, Agostini v. Felton, City of Boerne v. Flores, Mitchell v. Helms, Good News Club v. Milford Central School, Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, Van Orden v. Perry, and Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, among others.