Background
The Court rejected an establishment clause challenge to laws requiring that most large-scale commercial enterprises remain closed on Sundays. The Court's review of the history demonstrated that Sunday closing laws were originally efforts to promote church attendance. "But, despite the strongly religious origin of these laws, non religious arguments for Sunday closing began to be heard more distinctly."
The Court said that the Constitution does not ban federal or state regulation of conduct whose reason or effect merely happens to coincide with the tenets of some or all religions. It concluded that, as presently written and administered, most Sunday closing laws are of a secular rather than religious character. They provide a uniform day of rest for all citizens. To say that the State cannot prescribe Sunday as a day of rest for these purposes solely because centuries ago such laws had their genesis in religion would give a constitutional interpretation of hostility to the public welfare rather than one of mere separation of church and state.
Read more about this topic: McGowan V. Maryland
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