Chapter 14: The Child Benefit Test: An Overview and Update

Enacted as part of the Bill of Rights in 1791, the relevant part of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” To the extent, the First Amendment explicitly prohibits only Congress from making laws establishing religion, in 1940, the Court applied its provisions to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment in a dispute over the solicitation of money for allegedly religious, charitable, or philanthropic causes (Cantwell v. Connecticut, 1940). In other words, individuals now have the same rights in suits against the federal or state governments with regard to the establishment of religion.