{"id":284,"date":"2010-05-10T14:23:20","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T14:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2010\/05\/supreme-court-nominee-kagan-sh.html"},"modified":"2010-05-10T14:23:20","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T14:23:20","slug":"supreme-court-nominee-kagan-sh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2010\/05\/supreme-court-nominee-kagan-sh.html","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Nominee Kagan Should Answer Tough Church-State Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jay, <\/p>\n

For once, we may actually agree on something. <\/p>\n

Because Kagan is not a judge, she lacks a clear record on church-state issues. That’s why Americans United is also calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee<\/a> to fill in the picture by asking her questions about how religion and government should interact. <\/p>\n

What we do know of Kagan is that she argued a church-state case before the high court this term, defending a federal statute designed to preserve a cross erected on federal land in California. But, the Justice Deparatment inherited this case, Salazar v. Buono<\/i>, from the previous Bush administration. <\/p>\n


\nAU has also uncovered that while Kagan served as a clerk for Justice
\nThurgood Marshall in 1987, she wrote a memo adopting a separationist
\nviewpoint and stated that religious groups should not be able to
\nreceive public funding for certain secular activities. Unfortunately,
\nduring confirmation hearings for solicitor general, she distanced
\nherself from this analysis, calling it “deeply mistaken” and “utterly
\nwrong.” <\/p>\n

Because the Supreme court is split over issues such as tax funding
\nof religion, the role of religion in public life and the limits of
\nreligious freedom, it’s important the U.S. Senate get to the bottom of
\nthis and ascertain Kagan’s basic judicial philisophy on these issues.<\/p>\n

We hope that Kagan turns out to be as strong of a supporter for
\nchurch-state separation as Justice John Paul Stevens. He understood why our nation needs
\na high and firm wall of separation between church and state and it
\nwould be beyond disappointing if Kagan did not embrace that philosophy as
\nwell. <\/p>\n

To subscribe to “Lynn v. Sekulow” click <\/font>here<\/font><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/font><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/font><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jay, For once, we may actually agree on something. Because Kagan is not a judge, she lacks a clear record on church-state issues. That’s why Americans United is also calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to fill in the picture by asking her questions about how religion and government should interact. What we do know…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[334,333,51,67,335,388],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-supreme-court","tag-constitutional-law-2","tag-elena-kagan","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-separation-of-church-and-state-2","tag-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court Nominee Kagan Should Answer Tough Church-State Questions - Lynn v. Sekulow<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2010\/05\/supreme-court-nominee-kagan-sh.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court Nominee Kagan Should Answer Tough Church-State Questions - Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jay, For once, we may actually agree on something. Because Kagan is not a judge, she lacks a clear record on church-state issues. That’s why Americans United is also calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to fill in the picture by asking her questions about how religion and government should interact. What we do know…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2010\/05\/supreme-court-nominee-kagan-sh.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lynn v. Sekulow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-10T14:23:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rev. Barry W. Lynn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Supreme Court Nominee Kagan Should Answer Tough Church-State Questions - Lynn v. 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Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}