Already have an account? Sign in instead.
You stay signed in for 30 days on this browser.
Continue with Google Continue with MicrosoftNo account yet? Create a free one.
We sent a six-digit code.
It expires in ten minutes, works once, and only in this browser. Five wrong tries void it. Send another code.
Your account is live and the Cloudflare checks are off for this browser.
15 canonical passages across 11 cases, quoted by 597 opinions in total. These passages cluster together because the same opinions keep quoting them side by side: they state parts of one doctrine. The anchor passage is from Larson v. Valente.
| # | Case | Flag | Canonical passage | Citers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Larson v. Valente Anchor | green | “the clearest command of the establishment clause is that one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another.” | 149 |
| 2 | Zorach v. Clauson | green | “we are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a supreme being.” | 74 |
| 3 | Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Inc. | red | “psychological consequence presumably produced by observation of conduct with which one disagrees” | 69 |
| 4 | Marsh v. Chambers | green | “there is no indication that the prayer opportunity has been exploited to proselytize or advance any one, or to disparage any other, faith or belief.” | 48 |
| 5 | Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency | green | “at bottom, the gist of the question of standing is whether petitioners have such a personal stake in the outcome of the controversy as to assure that concrete adverseness which sharpens the presentation of issues upon which the court so largely depends for illumination.” | 44 |
| 6 | Stone v. Graham | green | “the secular application of the ten commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of western civilization and the common law of the united states.” | 38 |
| 7 | Marsh v. Chambers | green | “tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the people of this country.” | 33 |
| 8 | Marsh v. Chambers | green | “the opening of sessions of legislative and other deliberative public bodies with prayer is deeply embedded in the history and tradition of this country.” | 26 |
| 9 | Edwards v. Aguillard | green | “while the court is normally deferential to a state's articulation of a secular purpose, it is required that the statement of such purpose be sincere and not a sham.” | 26 |
| 10 | Stone v. Graham | green | “the ten commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the jewish and christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact.” | 25 |
| 11 | Edwards v. Aguillard | green | “state action violates the establishment clause if it fails to satisfy any of these prongs.” | 24 |
| 12 | Wallace v. Jaffree | green | “the court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the first amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all.” | 18 |
| 13 | Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assn. | green | “government simply could not operate if it were required to satisfy every citizen's religious needs and desires.” | 16 |
| 14 | Karen B. v. David Treen | green | “that a prayer may contemplate some wholly secular objective cannot alter the inherently religious character of the exercise.” | 4 |
| 15 | Wynne v. Town of Great Falls | green | “contained explicit references to a deity in whose divinity only those of one faith believe.” | 3 |
A red or yellow flag on a member means the underlying case has negative treatment: for those, check the case page before relying on the passage.