The OP asks a good question, and there is in fact no good answer, and no good reason why religious practice needs special protection or religious institutions should be given special status. If someone wants to believe in matters of faith, congregate with others of similar beliefs, and practice those beliefs in ways that don’t infringe the rights of others, they are free to do so under the rights of free speech and freedom of assembly that are guaranteed in all free societies.
The reason for special protection of religion is historical and at its core is based on the recognition that the devoutly religious of differing beliefs have historically engaged in violent conflicts over their differences. That, and the fact that in more primitive times religion played a larger role in society, so it has historically become entrenched in founding documents and in basic assertions of rights. Yet as Trinopus points out, in actual practice the protection of religion is often just the protection of the religion of the majority, typically Christianity in the west, with certain minority religions like Islam in the US and Judaism in other times and places being demonized.
There is really no intrinsic difference between a “recognized” religion and any arbitrary set of irrational beliefs I might choose to make up, except for how long the belief system has been established and how many practitioners it has. It’s no surprise that the “freedom of religion” doctrine has always had a conflicting and uneasy relationship with rational secular laws in modern free societies.
I’m surprised that for something with its basis in the constitution, there seems to be no-one so far that defends the idea on its own merits. Not that that’s impossible, of course, but still.
Since there doesn’t seem to be much debate on that central issue, how about this; what’s the answer to this seeming inequality? Should the religious protection be repealed? Secular protections enacted to bring them to the same level?
In my opinion, religious protections should not be repealed. They are of sufficient cultural value to warrant continued existence.
They need to be withdrawn from corporations. I think there’s a hefty plurality here, if not a majority, that corporations cannot have religious faith.
And the exercise of religious faith needs to be regulated carefully. I mentioned faith-healing of children. There are other examples, some of which are low-hanging-fruit, but others that might be more controversial.
For instance, I believe that homeowners should be able to opt-out of having proselytizers ring their doorbell. A “No Religious Solicitation” sign ought to have the force of law, and no one can claim that their religious duty to spread the word to all the land trumps this fundamental right of privacy and property.
Some will disagree. I say that their right to address me in public places suffices to satisfy their religious rights. (And there, too, the contact may not be overly aggressive. No touching, bub.)
I’m not comfortable with the idea of enacting comparable and parallel secular protections, because I can’t think of any specific secular rights that are imperiled. We already have protection against discrimination in employment, custom, property ownership, etc. on the basis of not having religious beliefs.
It seems to me that the RFRA creates 2 classes of people: religious and non-religious, and the religious seem to have more rights than the non-religious. I dislike that.
I’m not a religious believer but I’m having a hard time seeing this. The law is designed to allow people to exercise their religious beliefs. How do you expand that coverage to people who don’t have religious beliefs? It’s like asking why men don’t get the same maternity rights that women do.
If you insist on a compensating advantage, you can take comfort in the knowledge that you don’t have to live under any religiously imposed restrictions. You can sleep late on Sundays, eat pork and shrimp, drink beer, use condoms, and wear the underwear of your choice.
Except that no one is born with a religion, so that analogy isn’t very good.
Why should we expand coverage of the RFRA to include people with sincerely held beliefs that are not part of religion? That’s not what I want. I’d say scrap the law that gives religious people more rights than the non-religious. Or is there some way for me to opt out of laws that I don’t like/“believe in”? Why should an atheist have to follow all 16,000,000,000 laws (citation needed) on the books, but various religious people only have to follow 15,999,987,654? Or some other religious person only has to follow 15,999,994,878? If everyone is to be treated equally under the law, doesn’t the law have to apply equally to everyone?
So the example that Cliven Bundy set is, in your view, just the way things work in the world? As long as someone can bring enough force to bear, they can have whatever they want?
There is no need to “expand” religious-rights coverage to secular matters, as all basic rights are already covered in the Bill of Rights, and in equivalent principles in other free countries. But an explicit declaration of “freedom of religion” is in its essence a specifically enumerated right to believe and practice things that have no objective rational basis, and sometimes gives that right greater weight than the weight of law.
Further to what I said above, abolishing that specifically enumerated right doesn’t remove anyone’s right to practice their religion – it simply removes a special provision that elevates nonsense to a level that allows it to trump law and rationality. It should be abolished because it can be harmful – it seems that cases are constantly coming before courts where some idiotic action is being defended as a “religious right”. Things like opposition to contraception, abortion, blood transfusion, or vaccination, or asserting the right to wear a ceremonial dagger in public places, the right to flout motorcycle helmet laws because one wears a turban, or the right of a woman to have her face completely covered by a burqa in specific settings where identity is crucial, like voting or giving testimony in court.
What do you think juries are supposed to do every day?
It’s a question of fact. That means a jury (or a judge sitting as fact-finder in a bench trial) are supposed to observe the demeanor of the witnesses and use their own common sense to decide what parts of their testimony to accept and what to reject.
Why is this process acceptable if the jury is asked to decide, “Did the accused reasonably believe his life was in danger before he used deadly force?” or “Did the victim really consent to sex?” Those are just as much “reading minds” as anything in play here.
The answer is we’re a democracy. The majority of people have chosen to create some exceptions from generally applicable laws for religious reasons. And that majority includes people who don’t follow the religion themselves.
Distinction? I don’t think anyone in 1993 proposed that secular beliefs should be protected to the same degree as religious beliefs, so I’m not sure what distinction you’re looking for.
As far as the purpose, the law says:
And to those who comment that RFRA only protects popular religions, in the first three years of RFRA, 337 cases cited the law. Of these, 18% of those cases involved Jewish, Muslim, or Native American religions, which comprise only 3% of the public. And, in fact, the case that inspired RFRA was about a Native American who was denied unemployment benefits because he used peyote in his religious ceremonies. Guess who wrote the opinion of the Court for that case?
I’m obviously not a fan of the law, but the facts seem to indicate that the RFRA impact is broader than just protecting Methodists and Baptists.
That’s what I mean. What difference do they find between secular beliefs and exercise and religious beliefs and exercise such that the latter are worthy of specific, additional protection, and the former are not?
As far as your cite, it doesn’t give any actual reasons to separate the two that could not reasonably also apply to secular purposes, aside of course from those that rely on precedent, which are in turn reliant upon no good reason to separate the two that I can see.
As to your last sentence - it’s very broad, yes. Unless you’re not religious.
They may simply be reacting to history and the existence of the First Amendment – to the knowledge that religious dissenters suffered under religious government to a greater degree than secular dissent would create.
Dunno.
But you’re not alone:
Marci Hamilton (PDF link), counsel to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, submitted an amicus brief to the Court over the Hobby Lobby case. She offers up four reasons the RFRA should itself be unconstitutional:
The brief goes on to argue that RFRA: violates the Separation of Powers concept (by Congress “overturning” Employment Division v. Smith); violates Article V by being a de facto amendment to the Constitution; is not a valid exercise of Congressional power; and violates the Establishment Clause.
While all that you say here is true, I still would oppose removing that explicit enumerated protection – even for belief in nonsense and irrationality.
I think that harmful behaviors need to be banned, certainly. I believe that most of the cases of real harm can be addressed by existing laws. The burqa example, for instance, has already been struck down by the courts. Religious practice isn’t given absolute carte blanche; religious belief, speech, abstract ritual – even many examples of practical ritual – slaughtering a rooster, for instance, so long as he goes in the stew pot later – are protected, and, despite my own huge antipathy for most of these ideas, I believe they should be.
It’s a little like freedom of speech: it only really becomes meaningful when it protects ugly, stupid, hateful, or even dangerous speech. A constitution that only protects “Clifford, the Big Red Dog” but not some bozo’s hate-filled blog, isn’t really doing the job. And when he oversteps the boundaries – say, he threatens the life of the President – then there is an existing remedy.
I actually wish I could agree with you, but, in my heart, I just can’t. Freedom of religion doesn’t benefit me – it harms me. I’m here, standing up for the same people who would put me in prison for my beliefs. Irony, I suppose, but it’s how I define “the good.”
Actually, I’m not sure it does, given that it protects religious beliefs and exercise, not religious dissenters, per se. Religious dissenters with secular reasoning are as out of luck as everyone else.
That given, though, that supposes that they could forsee no time when secular dissenters could suffer to the same degree - which, besides being rather short-sighted, would also suggest that there is some line or some gradient along which suffering is graded to see whether it reaches a point where it’s worthy of protection. If so, why aren’t other groups who also suffered historically protected?
Because presumably you do; why do you disagree with these ideas?