The Constitution is really a great product of Framers= attempts to prevent further disorder that had occurred under the Articles of Confederation. The document gave the federal government much more power and authority then it had been given earlier, which helped to maintain order and solve economic issues. However, there was no word about individuals= rights and freedoms the Americans had been fighting for. Moreover, there was no provision to the most unequal and undemocratic institution-slavery. Thus, the Constitution could not be adopted without proclaiming and guaranteeing the people their liberties and rights. They appeared in the Bill of Rights, proposed by Jorge Washington, and set limitations on the national government while giving states more freedom. The United States Constitution guarantees Americans numerous liberties and rights. Civil liberties are freedoms that are guaranteed to the individual. They show what government cannot do. Civil rights are powers and privileges that are guaranteed to the individual and protected against arbitrary removal by the government or other individuals. They show what government must do or provide. These civil liberties and rights are listed in the first Ten Amendments and the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment. From the colonial era to the present, religions and religious beliefs have played a significant role in the political life of the United States. Religion has been at the heart of some of the best and some of the worst movements in American history. For example, the positive role of religion is that churches, synagogues, and temples have helped Catholic, Jewish, and Asian Buddhist immigrants as they adjusted to life in the United States. The United States is the most religiously diverse nation in the world. There are more than 1,500 different religious bodies and sects, including 75 varieties of Baptists alone. We have 360,000 churches, mosques, and synagogues. Americans are also extremely devout. According to the recent surveys, more than 90 percent of Americans profess a belief in God; more than a half say they pray at least once a day, and more than 40 percent say they have attended worship services during the previous week. The Census Bureau reports that 63 percent of the population claims church membership. The strength and diversity of religion in the U.S. is due almost entirely to the full protection of religious liberty, or freedom of conscience, guaranteed by the Constitution. Religious liberty has been called America=s Afirst liberty@ because freedom of the mind is logically and philosophically prior to all other freedoms protected by the Constitution. The guiding principles supporting the definition of religious liberty are set in Article 6 of the Constitution and in the opening words of the First Amendment to the Constitution. Article 6 of the Constitution concludes with the words: @No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the U.S.@ With this bold stroke, the Framers broke with European tradition and opened public office in the federal government to people of all faiths or none. The First Amendment=s Religious Liberty clauses state that ACongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise Y@. Taken together, these two clauses safeguard religious liberty by protecting religions and religious convictions from governmental interference or control. They ensure that religious belief or non-belief remains voluntary and free from governmental coercion. The first religious clause of the First Amendment is the Establishment clause. It prohibits laws that establish religion guaranteeing the separation of religion from the government. In the year that the First Amendment was adopted, no state had a single Aestablished church@, but five states had multiple establishments with the power of government behind them and the established denominations often persecuted the members of various minority religions. Baptists, Quakers, Jews and others were denied the right to hold public offices and were required to pay taxes to support the established churches. By the time the Constitution was framed, many of its framers had come to believe strongly in Adisestablishment.@ For example, Thomas Jefferson wrote of the need for a Awall of separation between church and state@, and in 1785 James Madison wrote in his Memorial and Remonstrance that Areligion is not helped by establishment, but is hurt by it@. More than a century and a half later, in 1971,the Supreme Court=s decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman put forth a three-part test for determining whether a law or a policy has breached the wall between church and state. The Lemon test asks: whether the government=s action has a religious purpose; whether the primary effect of the government=s action is to advance or endorse religion; whether the government=s action fosters excessive government Aentanglement@ with religion. If the answer to any one of these questions is Ayes@, then the law or policy violates the Establishment Clause. Further, government is prohibited from advancing or supporting religion. This does not mean, of course, that the government can be hostile to religion. The government must maintain what the Supreme Court has called Abenevolent neutrality@, which permits religious exercise to exist but denies its government sponsorship. The No Establishment clause serves to prevent both religious control over government and political control over religion. The second clause of the First Amendment=s religious clauses is the Free Exercise Clause, which prevents the government from interfering with the exercise of religion. The roots of this clause reach back to the country=s early colonial history. Roger Williams, who fled religious persecution in England and, in 1644,found Rhode Island as a haven for religious minorities. He said it was God=s command that Aa permission of the most of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Antichristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all Nations and Countries@. In spite of this sentiment, intolerance has occasionally threatened minorities= freedom of worship. The Supreme Court, therefore, beginning in 1940,handed down a series of decisions that formed a bulwark of protection for religious liberty. In 1940,the Supreme Court upheld the Right of Jehovah=s Witnesses to proselytize on a street corner(Cantwell v. Connecticut). In 1943,the Supreme Court ruled that Jehovah=s Witness children could not be forced to salute the flag in public schools(West Virginia v. Barnette). In 1963,the Supreme Court held that a Seventh Day Adventist could not be denied unemployment insurance because she refused to work on Saturdays (Sherbert v. Verner). In 1972,the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of an Amish parent who refused to send his children to school beyond the eighth grade(Wisconsin v. Yoder). One of the most controversy issues that can be referred to the Establishment Clause is school prayer. The controversy over officially sponsored prayer in public schools did not begin in 1962,when the Supreme Court first ruled that such observances violate the First Amendment. It began more than 100 years earlier, in the 1830s,when waves of Italian and Irish Catholic immigrants came to the country and objected to reading of the Protestant Bible and the recitation of Protestant prayers in most public schools. A great conflict erupted, including riots, the expulsion of Catholic children from public schools, the burning of convents and even some deaths. In the 1950s, as the religious diversity of our society increased, school prayer became a divisive issue once again. Now Jewish, Buddhist, Hindi, Moslem and atheist parents objected to Christian practices in the public schools. In 1962, in Engel v. Vitale, the Supreme Court ruled against officially sponsored and organized school prayer. The following year, in School District of Abington Township v. Schempp, the Court held that Bible readings in public schools also violate the First Amendment. However, within a month, over 25 resolutions, calling for constitutional amendments to override the Court=s decision, were introduced in Congress, including one that urged adoption of a AChristian amendment.@ Organized efforts to circumvent the Engel ruling have continued ever since, and schools and school districts throughout the country have continued to sponsor prayer in violation of the rights of religious minorities. Officially organized and sponsored devotional exercises in the public school setting are inconsistent with the principle of religious liberty in several ways. Such exercises make children feel they must participate or face the disdain of their teachers and fellow students. Children whose religious beliefs are different from those of the majority must not be made to feel like outsiders in their schools. Also, official school prayer usurps the right of parents to determine if, how, when, where and to whom their children should pray; it infringe on parents= right to choose the religious tradition in which they raise their children. Muslim, Jewish or Hindu parents do not want their children to participate in Christian observances. Atheist parents do not want their sons and daughters to pray at all. Parents should not have to fear that the public schools are indoctrinating their children in beliefs that are counter to their families= beliefs. Religious speech, like other speech, is protected by the First Amendment. Public school students have the right to read the Bible, recite the rosary, pray before meals and examinations and discuss their religious views with their fellow students, as long as they do so outside of the educational process. Nevertheless, students do not have the right to impose their religious expression on a captive audience of other students--for example, by broadcasting religious pronouncements or prayers over the school public address system-nor to compel other students to engage in any religious activity. The issue of Astudent-initiated prayer@ has arisen in the context of graduation ceremonies. Until 1992, it was common in some parts of the country for a member of the clergy to offer a prayer during graduation exercises. However, that year, the Supreme Court ruled in Lee v. Weisman that including prayer in a school-sponsored and Bsupervised graduation ceremony violated the Establishment clause. In the meantime, as with Engel decision 30 years earlier, an outcry from certain religious groups greeted the Weisman ruling. Some religious leaders argued that Astudent-initiated prayer@ must be allowed. In addition, students have the right to organize clubs, secular or religious and use school facilities. In 1984, Congress passed the Equal Access Act that protects the right of secondary school students to hold religious club meetings on public school grounds during noninstructional time, if other, noncurriculum--related student groups--such as political clubs, community service clubs, etc.--are also allowed to meet at a school. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Act in 1990, in Westside Community Schools v. Mergens. The Court indicated, however, that schools must treat religious clubs differently from other student clubs: school employees may not initiate, direct or participate in religious club meetingsCalthough a school staff person may be present to keep order an ensure safety. While school prayer is proved to be unconstitutional, many Americans look to religion as the primary source of values and urge a stronger role for religion in public life. Prayer and, perhaps, other religious observances, they argue, would be an antidote to today=s social problems. It is extremely important that public schools impart moral values to our children, which include such civil virtues as honesty, good citizenship, ethics and respect for the rights and freedoms of others. Nevertheless, religion should be practiced in the home, the church, the synagogue, the temple and the mosque and not at official events.