America's Lone Star Constitution: How Supreme Court Cases From Texas Shape the Nation by Lucas A. Powe Jr

Author:Lucas A. Powe Jr. [Powe, Lucas A. Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Law, Constitutional, Courts, Political Science, Constitutions, History, United States, State & Local, Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX)
ISBN: 9780520970014
Google: oHBLDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2018-04-27T00:53:47.816000+00:00

NINE

Freedom of and from Religion

This act reverses the Supreme Court’s decision Employment Division v. Smith.

—President Clinton on signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Texans are a religious people. Religion has been the backbone of the state’s position on abortion and gay rights. It has also been a force for keeping God out in the public. In 2011, with Texas mired in its worst drought in at least a century, Governor Rick Perry designated April 22 to April 24 as official days of prayer for rain. (That didn’t stop the drought.)

Texas exempted periodical subscriptions from its sales tax. Then in a striking example of a preference for religion, the law was changed to exempt only “periodicals that are published or distributed by a religious faith and that consist wholly of writings promulgating the teaching of that faith.” Texas Monthly paid the tax but sued for a refund, and while the Supreme Court split on why the exemption was unconstitutional a majority held it was, with a plurality concluding it violated the Establishment Clause by lacking a secular purpose.1 What the Court should have said was there never should be a sales tax on, as every cover proclaims, “the national magazine of Texas”—especially its barbeque issues.

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