Everson and Liberty: after 60 years, its words still ring true.

Certain Supreme Court decisions are burned into the public consciousness: Roe v. Wade, Brown v. Board of Education and the Miranda decision, to name a few.

A less familiar case called Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township deserves to be on that list as well. Handed down in 1947, Everson is a landmark decision that some experts regard as the most important church-state case ever deliberated by the high court.

The Supreme Court had dealt with church-state issues prior to Everson, but in that ruling, a unanimous court defined the separation of church and state in a succinct and powerful way. The language has rung loudly over the decades.

Observed the court, "Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.

"No person," the court continued, "can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion...."

The court concluded, "In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between church and State.'"

Many Supreme Court opinions contain eloquent language, but none has equaled Everson for such a cogent definition of what church-state separation means and why it is important.

Ironically, in the Everson ruling the justices upheld a tax subsidy to pay for parochial school busing. While a narrow five-member majority did not see the small sums spent as a violation, they went on to endorse a high and firm church-state wall.

The decision has had ramifications to this day. Virtually every church-state decision to come down since cites Everson. The ruling's pioneering language was cited in later decisions forbidding direct government support of religious institutions and in the line of cases curbing government-sponsored religion in public schools.

Lower federal courts have looked to Everson as a lodestar. The decision is often the starting point for legal analyses of church-state law. It is hard to overstate its impact or its importance.

Naturally, Everson has been a constant target of those who would undermine Jefferson's protective wall. Over the years, groups run by TV preachers and other extremists have conjured up a mythology about Everson. The decision, they claim, is hostile to religion. Separation of church and state, these far-right activists argue, did not exist prior to Everson.

Students of history know this is rubbish. The principle of church-state separation existed long before Everson. That doctrine was born of a hard-fought struggle in colonial and post-revolutionary America and inspired by visionary leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Jefferson promoted the metaphor of the "wall of separation" between church and state. Madison, the father of the Constitution and one of the architects of the Bill of Rights, used similar language to describe the First Amendment. In striving to determine the meaning of that amendment, we would do well to stick with the leaders whose actions brought it about rather than modern-day commentators with theocratic agendas.

Yet this has not stopped the torrent of "experts" who presume to tell us what Jefferson "really" meant when he talked about church-state separation. There is no need for the filter these so-called experts offer. We have Jefferson's own words and his body of work on behalf of religious liberty over a lifetime.

Looking at the crucial passage in Everson 60 years later, we can see the best of Jefferson's thinking. It's hard to see exactly why this language has engendered such fierce opposition.

The Supreme Court said in 1947 that no one can be forced to pay taxes to support churches or other religious institutions. This sounds eminently reasonable. The court said no one could be forced to attend religious services or be kept away from them by government action. The court said government may punish no citizen based on what he or she believes or does not believe about God.

What about this is controversial? What about this offends the spirit of America? If anything, the passage in Everson reflects what is best about America: Every citizen's right to worship or not as he or she sees fit and a mandate that religious groups must stand on their own, unaided and unimpeded by the government.

The promise of Everson stands in jeopardy today. William H. Rehnquist, the late chief justice, launched a vicious attack on the decision in his 1985 dissent in a school prayer case. His vitriol has since been echoed by justices such as Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

Everson still has defenders on the high court, but it will need more than that if its core principles are to survive. It will need an American people who understand the importance of the ruling and who rally around its powerful clarion call of liberty.