William r long and Bill long and dr bill long and religion and law and establishment clause jurisprudence and establishement clauses cases and free exercise cases and first amendment

The purpose of this page is twofold: (1) to provide summaries of the most important modern US Supreme Court cases on religious establishment and free exercise; and (2) to provide commentary on the various opinions that have been written. By clicking on a case to the right or left, you will have the summaries. By clicking here you will be sent to my commentary and legal essays. The summaries page is still in progress though the summaries to date represent more than 90 percent of the important cases.

My focus, beginning in Fall 2005, will be on writing commentary on the cases. This commentary consists of two kinds of essays. First, I will explain the reasoning of the Court in a particular case in more detail. This "explanation" will be both critical and expository. A few essays on the Ten Commandments cases, released on June 27, 2005, illustrate my method. Second, I will occasionally decide that a particular Justice's approach needs heightened scrutiny, and will devote a page or two to him or her.

I also want to keep open the possibility of writing essays on the occasional state or lower federal court case that limn an important issue for the free exercise or establishment of religion that may or may not ever make it to the US Supreme Court. Some of these cases may be constitutional, but others may relate to federal or state statutes. Some may relate to religious practice in general, while others may probe religious issues in various facets of national life (such as in employment contexts).

Other pages on this web site (click the "law" entry at the top of this page) explore topics that are more oriented to specific courses in the law school curriculum (insurance law, sales law, for example). It is also my ambition to try to begin a page soon on "current legal issues," which will allow a treatment of a wide variety of legal issues that are at various stages of consideration, from debates in the political arena through various venues in the court system.

Your comments on what topics you think are important to consider are most welcome.