As the renewed debate over prayer in the public schools suggests, the cultural conflict of the modern era finds vivid and enduring focus in the legal dispute about the place of religion in society. Here, the battle is overt, relentless, and pervasive—with traditional belief and custom retreating before a secularist onslaught in the courts and other public institutions. During the past three decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has handed down a series of rulings that decree a "wall of separation" between affairs of state and the precepts of religion. In 1962, the Court said an officially sponsored prayer recited in the New York public schools was, an abridgement of Americans' freedoms.
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