The answer to this is simple, in my opinion: laws should never, ever, include a religious exemption, no matter what. If a law exists, it should apply to everyone equally. If for some reason it cannot be applied to everyone equally, then that law, as a whole, needs to not exist - it doesn’t need an exception for a specific group of people, giving them special privilege above and beyond that which everyone else gets, purely because they profess a certain set of beliefs.
As for laws that specifically target religions, it is also simple to respond to, although more complex to put into practice. But no more complex than many other facets of the law. There are a huge number of parts of the law that specifically deal with intent. Therefore, figuring out whether a law should be struck down on religious grounds or not is simple: is the intent of the law to restrict a specific person or group of people’s religious behavior? If yes, then the law needs to be gotten rid of, if not, then it should stay and they should get no special exemption. They may argue that the law shouldn’t exist, but they should not argue that they should be exempt from it because of their beliefs, because that’s giving special privilege to the religious.
The above examples with the Amish, for instance, are in my opinion examples where they should not have gotten special exemption from the law. Neither of the examples above is a law that was designed specifically to target or harass the Amish; they were general laws made for the general benefit of the public. If the Amish can choose to opt out of Social Security, then everyone should have the same option, because I vehemently disagree with giving people special privilege because of their beliefs. We should all be equal in the eyes of the law, and the law should discriminate neither against nor for any religions. If a law is not so vitally important that everyone should have to follow it, then perhaps it shouldn’t be a law in the first place.
On the other hand, examples of laws trying to ban specific types of clothing that are primarily used by religious people are very good examples of laws that can pretty clearly be demonstrated to have the intent to restrict religious behavior. They shouldn’t pass, and they should be struck down if they do pass.
First of all, there are a very small number of Muslim countries that actually require Muslim women to wear hijabs. There are actually more Muslim countries where it’s ILLEGAL to wear the hijab than it is LEGAL to wear the hijab. Second those that do also have strict dress codes for men as well. Third, virtually none of the Muslims in France come from Saudi Arabia or Iran.
With few exceptions the Muslims from France come from countries in North or Sub-Saharran Africa thousands of miles away.
Justifying bigotry against Tunisians in France, who are from a country with severe restrictions on the wearing of the hijab not where it’s legally mandated, because of the actions of Saudi Arabia and Iran is as moronic as discriminating against Catholics in Northern Ireland based on what happens in Uganda.
Finally, this is the second time you’ve repeated the claim that France is doing this because they believe in “women’s rights” and to “protect women.”
I’ve pointed out several times on this thread that the French government passed this law not because of “concern for women” but their stated claim was to preserve “secularism” in their schools. In fact, the new law made a point of also banning Christian students from wearing crosses and Jewish students from wearing yarmulkas.
I’ll freely admit I find it a bit hilarious that based on your reasoning we should applaud France for banning male Jewish students from wearing yarmulkas because Saudi Arabia has laws against women driving cars.
How would you feel if parents made their girls wear a T-shirt that said “I’m not as a good as a man”?
Then it wasn’t bigotry against Muslims, was it, if it applied to Jews, Christians, and Muslims?
I’m also trying to follow the logic of singling out the French for being intolerant if the country that most immigrants come from bans the wearing of burqas. Presumaby even more strictly than France, where it applies to schools.
I entirely agree with you. Virtually all controversies about whether there should be religious exemptions to laws would vanish if we all simply acknowledged that the laws themselves shouldn’t exist. If the French government agreed to play no role in what people wear, we wouldn’t need to discuss whether anyone could wear a burqa or a hijab or a large cross. If the federal government did not try to micromanage exactly what health care plans must cover and how much copay they could charge, we would not need to discuss the government’s attempt to force the Catholic Church to pay for birth control. If the federal government did not try to manage retirement planning for everyone, no controversies regarding the Amish would arise.
In short, for a libertarian government, religious exemptions would hardly ever be an issue, since nothing that the government did would violate the First Amendment guarantee of free religious expression. Because we have a liberal, big government approach that tries to manage almost all aspects of our lives by force, government is constantly violating the guarantee of religious liberty.
No. Laws that target certain religions shouldn’t exist, but you seem to be taking some bizarre twist to that by saying that if any particular religion disagrees with a particular law, that law has to go, even if it was not designed to effect that particular religion. In a libertarian society, who decides whether a particular religion is legit or not? If it’s the people themselves, then I could create a religion and target particular laws as being “oppressive”.
edited to add: Common libertarian thinking that everyone in a libertarian society will be of the same mindset.
I’d feel those parents were pretty shitty people. Now, let me ask you: how do you think arresting the girls would help things out at all?
Many Muslims feel their religion requires them to wear a hijab. Many Jews feel that their religion requires them to wear a yarmulke. Some Christians like to display their faith by wearing a cross.
The law doesn’t affect all three groups equally. The fact that the law tags Jews about as hard as it tags Muslims isn’t evidence that the law isn’t bigoted, it’s evidence that French bigots know a twofer when the see one.
If wearing a hijab was remotely comparable to that you’d have a point, but it’s not so you don’t.
Do you actually read other’s posts before responding.
The French passed this law recently due to having large numbers of Muslim students wearing hijabs.
Jewish and Christian students had been wearing crosses and yarmulkas for decades without anyone having hissy fits.
However as soon as Muslim students started wearing hijabs the bigots came out of the woodwork screaming about France’s “secular” tradition being violated.
It was clearly targeted at Muslims and they only put in the ban on yarmulkas to provide the pretense it wasn’t bigoted. Also the law allows Christian students to wear crosses so long as they aren’t “large crosses.”
You might as well argue the poll taxes and literacy tests of the Jim Crow South weren’t bigoted because they applied to whites as well.
Anyway, could someone list a specific example of some religious exemption given by a government(Preferably a western one) that they object to.
Many school districts for example ban the wearing of hats inside but will allow Jewish students to wear yarmulkas and Muslim students wear hijabs or kufi caps.
Is that what people are objecting to?
I’m going to assume most of us have no problem with taxis or restaurants being forbidden from letting customers bring service animal in.
To me telling someone who honestly feels its religiously mandated that they wear a hijab/yarmulka/fill-in-the-blank that they can’t is more than a little like telling a blind teacher “no, you can’t bring your seeing eye dog in” or telling a student with diabetes or a severe allergy to bees, “no we don’t allow people to bring in things that can be used as weapons”.
I would describe myself as very strongly for the separation of church and state. If you search the SDMB you’ll find me arguing vehemently against having “under god” in the pledge of allegiance or “in god we trust” on money. That said, I think that the framework for the way religious exemptions work in the US is basically set up right, although I’m sure it’s misapplied sometimes.
That is, if a law interferes with a religious practice, then the religious people can make an argument as to why there should be an exception, and they might or might not win that exception, on a case by case basis, depending on various factors that I do not have the knowledge to enumerate.
You could certain argue that this is the government favoring the religious over the non-religious, but the fact is that religion is a particularly important part of the lives of enough US citizens that I have no problem with the government acknowledging and accommodating that, as long as it doesn’t do so in a way that favors certain religions or belief systems over others, or gives religious people a competitive advantage in society.
I’m with you up until the exception. If a law is such that it is not necessary to be followed by someone with a devout belief then why should it apply to me? I feel the correct action in the face of a decision to waive a law for a group is to waive it for everyone.
No, it means you’re allowed to bring your service dog in. BTW, I agree with your basic premise in this thread, I just think it’s a bad analogy here.
I agree with the notion that if a law shouldn’t apply to the religious, it probably shouldn’t apply to anyone. Such is the nature of our overreaching government, that we’re forced to decide such things. In the real world, I’d say the government should have a compelling interest–something significant–to require something counter to someone’s religion. That’s where Obamacare’s compulsion for birth control fails, IMO. It’s a solution in search of a problem that tramples people’s constitutional rights.
But, again, as a practical matter, I agrtee with Ibn Warraq re: existing religious exemptions. They seem like no big deal to me, reasonable accommodations (the ones I’m aware of, anyway).
OK, suppose a school has had problems with gang activity, and makes a “everyone must wear a uniform, no hats” rule. I assume you’re basically OK with that?
So “hey, I really like wearing hats” is NOT sufficient grounds to allow a student to wear a hat. But suppose there’s a student with a gaping head wound who has to wear a special medical device to keep a bandage in place? Can that student wear the device? Can they wear a “normal” looking hat over the device so they aren’t walking around with a big unusual medical device on their head?
What about a special ed student who throws a tantrum whenever their hat is taken away?
And what about a Jewish student, where both the parent and the student believe that God requires that he wear a yamulke at all times, and they’re willing to go to jail over it?
Do you not in fact think that that final case should be viewed any differently than just “I like wearing hats”?
A law doesn’t have to have secular justification. Where did you come up with that idea?
Now the Constitution specifically says that people have a right to the free exercise of their religion. So if some place did enact a law against yarmulkes, then it would be pretty easy to argue that this law violated the higher law in the Constitution.
But if there was no free exercise clause in the Constitution (as some people seem to be suggesting) there’s nothing prohibiting a law against yarmulkes.
My position is that if a law warrants an exemption for anyone, then everyone should be exempt. It’s simple fairness - if one person doesn’t have to follow the law for any reason, then no one should have to. If the law is important enough that people should have to follow it, then there should be no exceptions.
As others have pointed out; we do have laws that prohibit things that some religions deem important. If I professed to follow a religion requiring human sacrifice, I wouldn’t be allowed to practice the human sacrifice part of it, because the law against murder is important enough that everyone should follow it. People who follow religions that encourage polygamy aren’t allowed to practice that, because society feels it’s important enough to prohibit, even over their religious objection. Any law that deserves to stay a law should be like these: applied over any religious objection because it’s important enough that everyone should have to follow it.
As noted above, the laws that the Amish have specific exceptions to are a good example. They don’t have to pay social security tax, everyone else does.
And yes, I also object to banning the wearing of hats, but then allowing specific ‘religious hats’. This is an example of the sort of rule that I think shouldn’t exist in the first place; it’s not important enough for everyone to be forced to obey, so no one should be forced to obey.
As for a seeing eye dog or a medical treatment, those are different because they are related to an actual, demonstrable, physical need, not a belief. It’s not an exception based on a personal belief, it’s an exception based on an actual physical problem that the person demonstrably needs help with. A service dog can be an exception to a general ‘no dogs’ policy because such an animal receives extensive special training and is unlikely to be harmful. Although frankly, I would still support banning them from restaurants and instead having the restaurant staff assist the needy person, just to keep the eating environment clean. But this is kind of a derail.
A special medical device isn’t a ‘hat’, so it shouldn’t even fall under a ‘no hats’ rule in the first place. As far as a hat to cover the device, while my personal opinion would be to allow it, if there is an actual rule, no. It shouldn’t be allowed, because there is a rule, and there should be no exceptions to the rule that aren’t brought forth from direct physical need. Rules should be universally applied, no matter how sympathetic the exception may seem.
The student that throws a tantrum whenever the hat is taken away needs to deal with it, or be taught how to deal with it. Throwing a tantrum when you don’t get what you want is absolutely not grounds for making exceptions to the rules.
The Jewish student should have no special exception made either. He doesn’t have a demonstrable physical need to wear the hat, therefore the rule should apply. It should, in fact, be viewed not one bit differently than someone who just wants to wear hats because he likes wearing hats.
This, of course, is a rule that shouldn’t exist in the first place. If the Jewish parents/students want to oppose the rule, they should not be trying to carve out a special exemption for themselves; they should be arguing that the rule itself shouldn’t exist.
Mnemnosyne, do you believe that prohibiting gang-related clothing is not an effective way of curbing gang activities within school grounds? Not an elimination thereof, but indeed just a way to limit it.
Not really, no, although I will freely admit I’ve done no extensive research on the matter (I’ve read a couple general articles and that’s about it) and never really tried to find any studies (if they exist) that deal with the question. But my completely uninformed first thought is that if there is an effect, it’s highly minimal. Regardless, I feel that even if there is an effect to that end, unless it’s a very significant one, it shouldn’t override the students’ ability to wear what they choose to wear.
In the event that studies show the effect is significant enough that the rule is justified, though, then it should be universally applied. Yes, a person wearing a yarmulke isn’t expressing the same thing as the person wearing a gang hat, but if the rule is ‘no hats’ then I don’t feel religion should provide a special exception. Perhaps instead the rule should be ‘no gang hats’ and it would be up to the administrators to maintain a list of the prohibited hats. Too much effort? That’s part of the consideration to be made as to whether the rule is worthwhile in the first place, I think.
Generally speaking, I think that most exceptions to rules and laws create difficulty in the fair and equal application of laws, especially when those exceptions are not based on something simple that can be tested and checked.