Church and State

It's not unusual for public officials, including President Bush, to express their religious beliefs in the public sphere. But some wonder whether this is a violation of the First Amendment's separation of church and state. NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Sarah Gordon, a professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania, about the history of this important legal doctrine. Gordon is the author of The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America.