In the recent Pledge of Allegiance case, Justice Thomas tried to guide the Supreme Court's church-state jurisprudence back toward the Constitution.(Clarence Thomas)(Brief Article) From: National Review | Date: July 12, 2004 | COPYRIGHT 2004 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

* In the recent Pledge of Allegiance case, Justice Thomas tried to guide the Supreme Court's church-state jurisprudence back toward the Constitution. The First Amendment was originally understood as a federalist measure, one that protected the authority of state governments to manage church-state relations as they saw fit. Justice Thomas is not willing to go quite that far. But he sees, more clearly than any other justice, that the Court, in six decades of trying to manage church-s...