Abstract
For the last couple of years, we have been researching the religious beliefs and activities of justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and how those may have related to their judicial decision-making. The voluminous literature on the Court contains almost nothing on this topic; and we were intrigued by Judge Noonan's comment, in his casebook, that "the religious views of the Justices are a taboo subject in legal analysis." 1 In an article criticizing the Court's free exercise rulings, Douglas Laycock wrote that "the personal religiosity of the justices [is] none of my business. They are protected by both the Free Exercise Clause and the Test Oath Clause." 2 The warning appears to be that the justices' religious beliefs are private matters, not relevant or appropriate for scholarly discussion. 3 In the face of such statements, writing on this topic makes us feel a little like reporters for the National Enquirer. Headline: "Flash - Justice O'Connor Spotted Attending Church Last Sunday! What does this mean for her off-again, on-again relationship with the Lemon test?" There are some good reasons why the justices' religious beliefs have not been the object of study. Unless a decision of the Court makes specific use of religious arguments, which does not happen often, it can be very speculative to draw a connection between the decision and the re ligious views of the justices. Even if the legal realists were right that decisions usually rest on factors other than legal doctrines, the justices' religious beliefs may ...