Editing Wallace v. Jaffree (section)

==Dissents==
===Chief Justice Burger===
In his dissent to the US Supreme Court case, ''Wallace v. Jaffree'', Chief Justice Burger expressed several reasons for his opinion that the Court decided incorrectly. He began by pointing out that the statute authorizing a moment of silence at the beginning of a school day, which mentioned the word "prayer," did not unconstitutionally promote a religion. He maintained that the ruling against that statute was directly aggressive and intimidating to religion, which is as unconstitutional as a candid establishment of religion. Also in his first point, he contested the decision with the point that a school is constitutionally on the same level of government as state and federal legislatures and even the Supreme Court. Thus, the endorsement of a "moment of silence" with an oblique suggestion of prayer is no less constitutional as is the opening of Congress or a court session with a prayer by a publicly funded chaplain.

In his next point, Burger emphasized the tenuousness of the Court's peripheral reasoning by specifically including the statements of the statute's sponsor and the differences between the statute and its predecessor statute. Upon the subject of the statute's sponsor's comments, he raised many points that work to invalidate the use of the statements as evidence for the original intent of the legislature at the time of the statute's enactment. Firstly, he mentioned that those statements were made by the sponsor after the legislature's vote on the bill and that the legislature did not in all likelihood know any portion of his views enough to claim his motives to be those of the entire legislature. He also brought attention to the fact that the same legislator also stated that one of his purposes was to resolve a misunderstanding that silent, individual prayer was unconstitutionally prohibited.

Next, Burger discussed the differences between the debated statute and its predecessor by bringing up the Court's opinion that the inclusion of the phrase "or voluntary prayer" endorsed and promoted religion. He stated that the Court's reasoning relied upon the removal of the phrase from its context. He compared that addition to the addition of the phrase "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance and contested that the Court's logic would also condemn the Pledge of Allegiance as unconstitutional and so was discernibly preposterous. He suggested that when taken in context, the phrase "or voluntary prayer" was perfectly constitutional as a measure to prevent the unconstitutional prohibition of individual prayer.

Burger, in his third point, called out the Court's use of the "[[Lemon Test]] as an indolent attempt to apply a test that was "one size fits all" to a less-than-standard case. He suggested that the use of the test ignored the Court's duty to examine the statute against the ideas of the Establishment Clause and that the decision of the case clearly showed that shortcoming.

In his conclusion, Justice Burger reiterated the fact that the statute was not an unconstitutional endorsement and promotion of religion that sought to establish a state church but an entirely-constitutional measure designed to prevent truly-unconstitutional infringements upon the rights of students to pray individually as they please.

===Justice Rehnquist===
Justice Rehnquist's dissenting opinion relied heavily upon pointing out the faults behind the common misunderstanding of Thomas Jefferson's statements about the "wall of separation of church and state" in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association. Rehnquist began by explaining that the Establishment Clause has been closely linked with Jefferson's letter since ''[[Everson v. Board of Education]]''.

Rehnquist called attention to the fact that Jefferson did not write the letter until 14 years after the amendments to the US Constitution had been ratified and that Jefferson then resided in France. Thus, Rehnquist considered that Jefferson to be a less-than-ideal source of background on the Establishment Clause, regardless of Jefferson's intended meaning.

Justice Rehnquist suggested instead to turn to the actions of the Congress and James Madison's significant role in it for insight into the original intent of the Establishment Clause. He continued by referencing the debates of the colonies' ratification conventions.

He pointed out the fact that the states frequently opposed the ratification of the Constitution was the lack of a Bill of Rights. Those who upon that basis opposed ratification thought that the government, without such an enumeration of rights, had a great potential to follow the authoritarian path that they wished to avoid.

To solve the impasse, Madison urged Congress to consider his draft of amendments. After some time of debate and revision, a version what is now the First Amendment was created: "No religion shall be established by law, nor shall the equal rights of conscience be infringed."

That version was met with opposition by many representatives as it could be construed "to abolish religion altogether" or "to be taken in such latitude as to be extremely hurtful to the cause of religion." It was on that basis that the final version of the amendment was selected and ratified. Thus, Rehnquist stated that it is indisputable that the spirit in which the Congress approved the Establishment Clause was one of open-minded toleration, not hostility towards religion.

He then brings up Thomas Jefferson's reasoning for not issuing a Thanksgiving Proclamation. Jefferson said that partaking in prayer and religious exercises are acts of individual discipline and that the right to those activities can never be safer than in the hands of the people. Rehnquist maintained that the meaning of the Establishment Clause was a preventative measure to keep the government from establishing a religion, not to prevent the individual freedom to follow one's own beliefs.

In his conclusion, Rehnquist denounced the Lemon Test as "having no more grounding in the First Amendment than the wall theory created from 'separation of church and state' " in ''Everson v. Board of Education''. He says that because it has no basis in the amendment that it is designed to interpret, it cannot yield predictably constitutional results when applied to a statute.