With regards to local, state, and federal laws.
For example;
why couldn’t a religion simply claim that members of the religion are forbidden to pay taxes, obey speed limits, or any laws for that matter?
The Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment is not absolute when religious practices are in conflict with the law. For example, the Mormon practice of polygamy was ruled to be illegal.
When we still had the draft, there was a huge raft of special laws hashed out to allow Amish and Quaker people to opt out (either to do service in other ways or to not get access to other citizen benefits to balance out).
But in the case of actually illegal behavior, it’s long been established that you can’t use religion as an excuse.
Freedom of religion does not mean that religions are above the law. It means that the law must treat different religious beliefs equally. If the core tenet of friedonianism is that everybody named Mrdeals should be murdered, that does not mean that I get to murder you. People of all religious beliefs are forbidden to murder. Even godless atheists!
The Selective Service System and the DoD allow conscientious objector status for anyone with a sincerely-held religious belief that requires pacifism. Quakers were probably the largest single group to take advantage of that, but many other people did as well.
I am not sure this is a GQ question.
The US courts deal with this on a semi-regular basis. There is a good deal of case law already out there including Supreme Court law. Most recently being same sex marriages and people not wanting to issue marriage certificates or bake cakes for same sex weddings due to religious beliefs (they can’t). Also, whether a company could deny coverage for birth control in their insurance plan due to religious belief (they can).
It is a constantly moving target that changes with the times. All that can really be nailed down is that the Supreme Court cannot favor one religion over another or stop you form worshiping. Even those have some limits.
That’s only half of the religious rights protected by the Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. But there’s the other half that a lot of people forget: “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
The free exercise clause says more than the government must treat each religion equally. It says that the government cannot prohibit religious activities. In theory, if I’m an Orthodox Aztec and my religion includes human sacrifice, the government cannot limit the free exercise of my religion by prohibiting human sacrifice.
But in the real world, the court system has never recognized any such unlimited freedom. The government is allowed to enact laws which restrict the free exercise of religious practices but any such laws are challengeable on constitutional grounds. Then the courts get to decide if the law is acceptable or not.
The Amish don’t pay social security.
The supreme court ruled in 1990 that religions are not exempt from laws of general applicability. In the particular case the facts were a person trying to get a religious exemption for smoking peyote. In response to this congress and many states passed the Religious Freedom Restoration act, saying that the laws that could restrict religious practice have to have a legitimate governmental purpose and must accomplish that purpose in the least restrictive way possible. Furthermore a person could not just declare that they have a new religion that require them from breaking the law, the religion must be real and the religious belief sincerely held.
Isn’t there a “grandfather” clause for religions that involve things like peyote? If the religion is actually an old, established one, no matter how obscure, its adherents can get exemptions to laws like using peyote, but you can’t invent a religion just for that purpose?
If you want to have a good grounding on the Supreme Court decisions regarding “free exercise thereof”, I recommend going to: The GPO Annotated Constitution, Amendment I (PDF!), specifically, page 1120 ff. As that document notes,
The footnote to that statement says,
They do. But some dont want to.
This is what I find incomprehensible. I mean I know why they did it. We can’t have every person deciding which laws apply. But I cannot see how this does not directly conflict with: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”.
Recognizing this protection has been extended to cover states as well. How is a state deciding a religion is “real” or not exactly about establishing a religion.
States don’t decide whether a religion is real, only whether a religious belief is sincerely held. “Realness” isn’t part of the test, which is why the Pastafarian guy got to take a driver’s license photo with a colander on his head.
Of course, the first amendment does not allow you to make or even possess kiddie porn, nor does the second amendment allow you to possess heavy weaponry. There are even more nuanced versions of restrictions - obscenity laws regarding adult porn, restrictions on some lesser weapons in some states. There is always a (“reasonable”?) limit on what the constitution allows, based on Supreme Court interpretation. The same would appear to be the case with the “Freedom” of religion.
Establishing a religion is not about deciding which ones are real and which are pretexts for unlawful conduct. It means having an official church of the country. For example in Germany certain churches get a percentage of member’s tax money and are able to give religious instruction in schools.
I think you don’t understand what “establishment” means (or meant in the 18th century). Massachusetts had an established religion, which meant that every inhabitant was required by law to be a member of the Puritan church and go to their services. England has an established church, the Church of England, aka the Anglican Church. Nowadays no one is required to belong, but 500 years ago, they were. What was bloody about Bloody Mary was that she changed the established church from Anglican to Roman, and still required every inhabitant to go to services every Sunday. The constitution simply meant that Congress could not establish a national religion in that sense. I am not sure when Mass disestablished its church. But whenever they did, there must have been have opposition from the antidisestablishmentarianists. Hey, I’ve used that word legitimately.
Semi-regular indeed. Just with changes in what group of the public your religion says you can’t serve.
When I was growing up in the late 1950’s & 60’s, there were lots of court cases because bigots wouldn’t serve food to black people at their lunch counter, or take photos at a black wedding, or rent their hall for a black wedding, etc. (And don’t even think about a mixed black-white wedding!) Because that was “against my religion”.
Eventually, courts ruled against all of those, and public opinion ruled against them even earlier. Only nut cases would argue for them nowadays. Now people generally accept that if your business is open to the public, it must be open to ALL members of the public.
Establishment doesn’t just involve imposing religion on the citizens; it also involves imposing state control on the church. So the state appoints bishops, say, or has the final say in on credal statements, or on matters of church government.
It was probably more the latter feature of establishment that mainly spooked the colonists, and led to the non-establishment clause being included in the Bill of Rights. And that does give the churches a degree of freedom; the government can tell the county clerk to celebrate a same-sex marriage and send he to jail if she refuses, but they can’t do that to Pastor Bob.
Not quite. It’s true that several states had “established religions” into the early 19th century, and the SCOTUS did not incorporate (make applicable to the states) the establishment clause until the 20th century, but the MA constitution was a bit more liberal than you make it out. Here’s the appropriate text (they didn’t like Catholics, btw, which is funny if you think of MA today what with all the Irish and Italians):
*Article III. As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality, and as these cannot be generally diffused through a community but by the institution of the public worship of God and of the public instructions in piety, religion, and morality: Therefore, To promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies-politic or religious societies to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.
And the people of this commonwealth have also a right to, and do, invest their legislature with authority to enjoin upon all the subject an attendance upon the instructions of the public teachers aforesaid, at stated times and seasons, if there be any on whose instructions they can conscientiously and conveniently attend.
Provided, notwithstanding, That the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies-politic, or religious societies, shall at all times have the exclusive right and electing their public teachers and of contracting with them for their support and maintenance.
And all moneys paid by the subject to the support of public worship and of public teachers aforesaid shall, if he require it, be uniformly applied to the support of the public teacher or teachers of his own religious sect or denomination, provided there be any on whose instructions he attends; otherwise it may be paid toward the support of the teacher or teachers of the parish or precinct in which the said moneys are raised.
And every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law; and no subordination of any sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law.*