Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
What happens when a professor of church/state law decides to get out of his stuffy office and hit the road in search of the places and people responsible for some of the countrys mostcontroversial Supreme Court cases about this hot-button issue? In Holy Hullabaloos, Jay Wexler visits Amish farmers in Wisconsin who were fined for keeping their kids out of school; drinks at a bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts, whose liquor license was challenged by a nearby Armenian church; and attends a public high school football game in east Texas where students once prayed before kickoff. He stops by Hialeah, Florida, where laws were passed to keep a Santeria church from performing animal sacrifices; visits a publicly funded Muslim school in downtown Cleveland; and checks out the site of a six-foot granite monument of the Ten Commandments erected on the Austin Capitol grounds near the Supreme Court.With a mix of awe and skepticism as well as large doses of humor, Jay Wexler searches for what really happened in some of our gnarliest disputes about just how high to build the wall between Church and government.
About the Author
After ten years spent riddling over the intricacies of church/state law from the ivory tower, law professor Jay Wexler decided it was high time to hit the road to learn what really happened in some of the most controversial Supreme Court cases involving this hot-button issue. In Holy Hullabaloos, he takes us along for the ride, crossing the country to meet the people and visit the places responsible for landmark decisions in recent judicial history, from a high school football field where fans once recited prayers before kickoff to a Santeria church notorious for animal sacrifice, from a publicly funded Muslim school to a creationist museum. Wexler's no-holds-barred approach to investigating famous church/state brouhahas is as funny as it is informative.