Preamble
We, the people of South Dakota, grateful to Almighty God
for our civil and religious liberties, in order to form a more perfect and
independent government, establish justice, insure tranquility, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and preserve to ourselves and to
our posterity the blessings of liberty, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the State of South Dakota.
Article VI, section
3
The right to worship God according to the dictates of
conscience shall never be infringed. No person shall be denied any civil or
political right, privilege, or position on account of his religious opinions;
but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to
excuse licentiousness, the invasion of the rights of others, or justify
practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of the state. No person shall be
compelled to attend or support any ministry or place of worship against his
consent nor shall any preference be given by law to any religious establishment
or mode of worship. No money or property of the state shall be given or
appropriated for the benefit of any sectarian or religious society or
institution.
Article VIII, section
16
No appropriation of lands, money, or other property or
credits to aid any sectarian school shall ever be made by the state, or any
county or municipality within the state, nor shall the state or any county or
municipality within the state accept any grant, conveyance, gift, or bequest of
lands, money, or other property to be used for sectarian purposes, and no
sectarian instruction shall be allowed in any school or institution aided or
supported by the state.
Article VIII, section
20
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 3, Article VI and
section 16, Article VIII, the Legislature may authorize the loaning of
nonsectarian textbooks to all children of school age.
Article XI, section
6
The Legislature shall, by general law, exempt from
taxation, property used exclusively for agricultural and horticultural
societies, for school, religious, cemetery, and charitable purposes, property
acquired and used exclusively for public highway purposes, and personal property
to any amount not exceeding in value two hundred dollars for each individual
liable to taxation.