Secular purpose

[Mark Graber]

I confess that with both religion and race we are not likely to
determine purpose without reference to history.  Anyone who cannot
think of a secular purpose for any piece of legislation does not have
the intelligence to teach at a law school (or the sixth grade for
that matter) (I can think of a lot of  secular justifications for
a law requiring all Americans to become Christians).  So we look to
history to see who has traditionally supported some practice then
look to present practice to see where support comes from now.  If the
leading supporter of some alleged scientific proposition is a law
school professor, this is probably good but imperfect evidence that
the proposition lacks scientific support.  The more scientists and
the more scientists from diverse religious traditions support a
claim, the more evidence the claim has scientific basis.  I think
that is the best we can do.  It's messy, but so is most of life.

Mark A. Graber
mgraber at bss2.umd.edu