No law should ever have a religious exemption.

[Strinka]

@jtgain

You’re right. That is a much better example. Suppose Congress banned Scientology on the grounds that it promotes unhealthy behavior or corruption of youth or some such thing, you have to then ask if it is a real religion. Because if it is, then it has special protection under the first amendment. If it’s not, then no special protection and the ban would be okay.

Your “real” crimes quote begs the question. It could be a “real” crime to be a member of Scientology if the legislature makes it so. Some crimes are so outrageous as to make it irrelevant whether a religious group is committing them or not. Some crimes would face that strict scrutiny standard to where they would be no good if they diminished an organized religion, but survive a rational basis review if the group was not a religion. Hence, the government would have to make a determination at some point as to what is a religion.

It has to do that in the same way it must define free speech, freedom of the press, the right to keep and bear arms, the right against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the rest. You can’t enforce a right without defining what fits within that right.

Holding a belief, whether religious or not, should never be a crime. And whether an organization is considered criminal or not shouldn’t be affected by whether or not it’s considered a religious organization. It’s basically just restating the question in terms of organizations instead of individuals. If a secular organization did something that was worthy of getting it banned, a religious organization doing the same thing should get the same treatment. I think that for the same reason I think there shouldn’t be other religious exemptions.

[begbert2]

@jtgain

But what if we made it a crime to recognize the Judeo-Christian God or to congregate for the purpose of discussing Him? Say the legislature defined the rational basis for this law as the hatred against homosexuals and the need to prevent mobs from forming to foment this hate.

Wouldn’t we then have to decide if these activities are a true “religion” protected by the first amendment? If it isn’t a religion or a peaceable assembly, then there is no right to this meeting.

We could then slide all the way down the scale of absurdity to what is a religion, but the courts will at some point have to decide that this here is a religion and that there is not.

[QUOTE=The First Amendment]
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
[/QUOTE]

A law specifically banning the recognition of the Judeo-Christian God would be unconstitutional due to “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”; a law prohibiting congregation for the purpose of discussing him would be unconstitutional due to “or the right of the people peaceably to assemble”. (Well, assuming the discussion was peaceable anyway.) Try to avoid hypotheticals that are already covered by other clauses, please.

When I see “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”, I can only see two ways to interpret that line:

1. Congress shall not make laws that give preferential treatment to any establishment of religion. (respect as in “I respect you as a person”)
   or
2. Congress shall not make laws about establishments of religion at all. (respect as in “with respect to that”)

Now, the fact that “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” is in there argues for the first interpretation, but either way, by both the interpretations I can think of for that line, all religious exemptions are flatly and blatantly unconstitutional. (At the federal level anyway.)

I have often wondered why people think religions are allocated special priviledges by this ‘freedom of religion’ thing - they very explicitly aren’t. What they’re free from is having the government pay any attention to their religion whatsoever. No oppression for it, and no privilidges for it. Which means that the government doesn’t need to make a test for whether something is a religion or not - arguably if they do they’re flirting with unconstitutionality. If they ever actually used the results of such a test to discriminate one way or another in creating or enforcing laws, they explicitly would be defying the constitution.

Well, give or take that lawmakers have been ignoring the constitution for centuries now. But the fact remains that the text is clear.