This may be naive, but I’ve always felt that religious belief–even absolute belief in really spectacularly dumb ideas–is protected by the constitution, and I’m never offended or bothered by what someone else believes because I never know what they believe.
But when they feel the need to save my soul, even after I tell them it’s doing just fine, thank you, and blab about their cult out in public–well, here I get offended because they’re not asking me if I want to even hear about this drivel, and it encroaches on my pursuit of happiness to be subjected to it.
So what’s the problem with allowing people to believe what they like so long as they shut up about it? I really don’t get why they’re allowed to try to convert others to their belief system. Why is yakking endlessly about your beliefs constitutionally protected?
“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.”
Since proselytization is a core element of some belief systems, restricting that would be an impediment to the “free exercise” of their religion. However, you are not required to listen to them. You may send them from your door without fear of Federal agents arresting you. You may request/insist that they leave you alone at work. (Your employer may require that they refrain from harrassing you while on company time.) You may shout “Boo!” at them on the beach. You may demand that they be quiet during a concert or at the movies.
I guess the part of my rant that’s up for debate is the part about how “the free exercise of” religion works out to allow proselytizing (is that right? It never looks right when I spell it. i should look it up already.) If the gov’t were to shut down a closed-door meeting of the Church of Satanists, that would be abridging their free exercise of religion. But telling them, “Hey, there’s a time and place, and that time and place is in the company of people who actually care about this drivel” lets them go on believing, and doesn’t restrict them (IMO) in a meaningful way. If we drew the line differently, religion could still go on, and be exercised freely, w/o entering into public discourse.
If they have an absolute right to proselytize (?)because that’s part of their beliefs, why don’t I have an absolute right to conduct my “church” services on the steps of City Hall naked? (Me naked; the steps are always naked.) Because it’s not an absolutely protected right; rather our society works out rules about what constitutes an appropriate time and place for it.
I guess it’s no debate if everyone disagrees that such restrictions as I’m wondering about are clearly allowed by the Constitution.
That’s true, but remember the freedom of speech aspect weighs into it as well as the free exercise clause. People generally have a right, subject to reasonable time and place restrictions, to publicize their views and make them known to others, religious, political and otherwise.
Exactly what those time and place restrictions should be, I’m guessing, is the core of what you’re talking about.
No, an evangelist does not have an absolute right to proselytize.
There’s a large difference between content-based restriction on the right to freedom of speech, which is prohibited by the First Amendment as currently understood, and time-, place-, and manner-based restrictions, which are totally acceptable so long as they are not absolute nor based on content.
For example, you may drive a sound truck through a suburb blaring announcements in support of a candidate (hopefully, the one you oppose!:)) at 1 PM. Doing so at 1 AM would probably result in your arrest for disturbing the peace.
You are more than welcome to state your views on the First Amendment in the middle of the public park or on your front lawn or wherever you can attract listeners. It is not, however, kosher to stand up in the middle of Mass at St. Swithin’s and announce them, nor to walk into the middle of a high school S.A.T. exam and begin to explain them in a loud, clear voice.
By the same token, the proselytizers have the right to approach you and attempt to convert you. You have the right to ignore them. You have the right to ask them to stop; if they fail to do so, and continue to invade your privacy, you can probably have them arrested for harassment.
You have the right to conduct your church services on the steps of City Hall naked provided that doing so does not violate your state’s laws on public indecency and that provision has been made for use of those steps by anyone under appropriate provisions with which you have complied. However, there is one argument against it: persons who do not believe in the necessity of conducting naked church services on the steps of City Hall paid taxes for the erection of those steps and are a part of the public which collectively owns those steps, so your conducting your services there might be seen as a violation of separation of church and state.
Exactly, Pravnik. ThanKs for putting it so succinctly.
Polycarp, I understand THAT they have been given the right to try to convert me. I’m wondering WHY the line has been drawn to allow it. It makes more sense to me to see conversion as NOT constitionally protected.
Mintygreen–Yes, but if my religious beliefs state that I must not listen to attempts to convert me, wouldn’t it be a violation of my religious freedom to be forced to? Your presumed answer (“Of course not, you simple-minded numbnuts…”) implies that there are restrictions to what a free exercise of religion may consist of. I’m saying we already restrict where and when free speech about religion may be exercised and, as Polycarp points out, we arrest people who harass you beyond a reasonable limit. I’m asking if we were to define that reasonable limit more tightly, would that necessarily violate the fundamental practices of a free society? I’m not sure it would.
I find almost all car dealer ads repulsive. Therefore, the radio and TV stations around here should stop carrying them, in case I should happen to want to listen or watch them.
The proselytizers feel a moral obligation to equip you with the knowledge necessary to escape your justly deserved fate when the Divine Weasel throws you into the fiery furnace for your manifold sins and wickedness. They do this out of the brotherly/sisterly love for you that they are commanded to have by the selfsame Wrathful Deity.
How far should they be permitted to go? How far should “the Undisputed Price Leader” and "Mr. Big Volume’ (the latter in a basso profundo) be permitted to push the dubious claims about the lemons they have acquired over the public airwaves, title to which belongs to us citizens collectively?
And if this is true, if a simple “Shut up, please,I’m not interested” turns a legal act into an illegal one, does the government blithely violate their constitutional rights? Can’t they just come back with “Sorry, my religion forbids me to shut up when a potential convert asks me to. In fact it demands that I redouble my efforts. Now then, [SHOUTING] do you accept your inevitable baptism in Satan’s spunk?”
Why wouldn’t conversion [by which I assume you mean proselytizing] be constitutionally protected? Telling others about your religions is self-evidently both speech and the exercise of religion, and is therefore doubly protected.
The First Amendment is all about what the government cannot do, not what private individuals cannot do.
The government cannot attempt to convert you if that violates your religious freedom (which, by definition, it does, regardless of your beliefs). But a private individual can violate your religious beliefs as they see fit.
The government’s job under the 1st Amendment is not to protect your religious beliefs. It’s job is to not interfere with them.
It most certainly would violate the fundamental practices of a free society.
Consider harrassment laws. They apply in any circumstances, regardless of the content of the harrassment. If I follow you down the street, shouting in your ear, I get arrested for harrassment, regardless of what I am shouting.
If we change the rules so that what I am shouting makes a difference, and decree that you must be shouting in another’s ear for a block before you can be arrested, so long as you are talking about sports, but if you are talking about religion, you will be arrested even if you are talking quietly, well then, we have valued one content over another. And that violates the fundamental practices of a free society.
The key line which you are trying to cross, pseudotriton ruber ruber, is that you are looking to impose content-based restrictions on speech (i.e. you want to prohibit proselytising speech because it is proselytising) and that’s not allowed.
It’s a freedom of speech thing more than a free exercise of religion thing. You can restrict free speech in a variety of ways, but not because you don’t like the content of the speech. So in any circumstances in which you would allow commercial advertising, or political speeches, or public poetry recitals, or street theatre, or whatever, you’ll have difficulty forbidding religious speech.
Treatment of religious speech is consistent with the treatment of every other form of speech. No special rules are applied. Probably a case could be made for saying that special rules should be applied under the free exercise of religion clause, but it’s not necessary, since free speech generally is so well protected under American constitutional law.
The Constitution does not permit the average citizen to do anything. Instead, it places restrictions upon the government as to what the government is able to do.
Civil rights are considered inherent in the human condition under the Constitution.
The burden is upon the government and not the people.
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I can keep it going a bit longer, Neurotik. Say I’m sitting on the subway. The guy on my left asks me to give him five dollars; I’m permitted to turn the cop sitting to my right and have the guy arrested because his content, begging for money, violates NYC statutes. How is it okay if he asks me for my soul, but not if he asks me for five bucks? Aren’t they both free speech? If you can find an exception for the one and not the other, aren’t you privileging one type of content above another?
That actually was an issue in a moot court competition I remember from law school, begging as free speech. It wasn’t in my class, though, so I don’t remember any of the case law off of the top of my head
I don’t want to read this whole thread, so forgive me if this point has already been stated.
The Constitution does not “permit” anything. The idea that we must have specific permission from the Constitution in order to justify any action is ridiculous. The Constitution limits the scope and power of government operations, it isn’t a list of things that we’re “permitted”.
IANAL, but I’m not sure that asking the person next to you for a few bucks is the same thing as begging, as specified in the statutes. And maybe begging is protected by the First Amendment, but has not been brought to court yet. Any precedents?