Holy Hullabaloos: A Road Trip to the Battlegrounds of the Church/State Wars
After ten years spent riddling over the intricacies of church/state law from the ivory tower, law professor Jay Wexler decided it was high time to hit the road to learn what really happened in some of the most controversial Supreme Court cases involving this hot-button issue. In Holy Hullabaloos, he takes us along for the ride, crossing the country to meet the people and visit the places responsible for landmark decisions in recent judicial history, from a high school football field where...
Search in google:
What happens when a professor of church/state law decides to get out of his stuffy office and hit the road in search of the places and people responsible for some of the country’s most controversial Supreme Court cases about this hot-button issue? In Holy Hullabaloos, Jay Wexler visits Amish farmers in Wisconsin who were fined for keeping their kids out of school; drinks at a bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose liquor license was challenged by a nearby Armenian church; and attends a public high school football game in east Texas where students once prayed before kickoff. He stops by Hialeah, Florida, where laws were passed to keep a Santeria church from performing animal sacrifices; visits a publicly funded Muslim school in downtown Cleveland; and checks out the site of a six-foot granite monument of the Ten Commandments erected on the Austin Capitol grounds near the Supreme Court.With a mix of awe and skepticism as well as large doses of humor, Jay Wexler searches for what really happened in some of our gnarliest disputes about just how high to build the wall between Church and government. Publishers Weekly Boston University law professor Wexler is also a published humorist. This felicitous combination of talents is put to good use as he visits the towns and cities where the always controversial cases concerning separation of church and state arise. Wexler's lucid explications of difficult constitutional concepts and the vagaries of Supreme Court rulings are superb, providing readers a deeper understanding of the First Amendment and Supreme Court jurisprudence. But that's only half the story. Wexler is laugh-out-loud funny as he narrates his odyssey through battleground sites from rural Wisconsin through Texas to the chambers of the U.S. Senate. Along the way he happily and with a usually generous spirit skewers Supreme Court justices, legislators, educators, law school professors and pretty much anyone else, including himself, who has ever taken a position on the enduring American controversies surrounding prayer in schools, religious displays on public property, or the teaching of evolution. This is a rare treat, a combination of thoughtful analysis and quirky humor that illuminates an issue that rarely elicits a laugh-and that is central to the American body politic. (June)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Prologue to a Road Trip vii1 Hasidic Hullabaloo: Destination New York State 12 Santeria Skirmish: Destination South Florida 293 Amish Agitation: Destination the Cheese State 594 Religious Display Ruckus: Destination Austin 905 Senate Prayer Suspicion: Destination the Nation's Capital 1206 Funding Religion Fracas: Destination Cleveland 1487 Ball-Field Prayer Brouhaha: Destination East Texas 1778 Creationism Commotion: Destination Kentucky 205A European Epilogue 234Acknowledgments 240Notes 242
\ Publishers WeeklyBoston University law professor Wexler is also a published humorist. This felicitous combination of talents is put to good use as he visits the towns and cities where the always controversial cases concerning separation of church and state arise. Wexler's lucid explications of difficult constitutional concepts and the vagaries of Supreme Court rulings are superb, providing readers a deeper understanding of the First Amendment and Supreme Court jurisprudence. But that's only half the story. Wexler is laugh-out-loud funny as he narrates his odyssey through battleground sites from rural Wisconsin through Texas to the chambers of the U.S. Senate. Along the way he happily and with a usually generous spirit skewers Supreme Court justices, legislators, educators, law school professors and pretty much anyone else, including himself, who has ever taken a position on the enduring American controversies surrounding prayer in schools, religious displays on public property, or the teaching of evolution. This is a rare treat, a combination of thoughtful analysis and quirky humor that illuminates an issue that rarely elicits a laugh-and that is central to the American body politic. (June)\ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.\ \
