Secularism and US Religion Jurisprudence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Corbin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Establishment Clause ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
Constitutional Jurisprudence

Religious surveys are finding greater percentages of Americans who self-identify as secular. At the same time, religious exemptions under the Free Exercise Clause have become more difficult to obtain. However, religion jurisprudence in the United States has not become more secular for two reasons. First, this greater unwillingness to grant constitutional exemptions reflects a shift in constitutional jurisprudence from “separationism” to “neutrality.” Rather than building a wall between church and state, the Establishment Clause is now interpreted to impose fewer restraints on state-sponsored religion. Second, statutes like the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and its state counterparts have not only reestablished separationist era levels of protection for religious liberty but increased them. The result is a religion jurisprudence where religion is accommodated more than ever, while the state has more leeway to advance religion. This combination has unfortunate consequences for both secular people and core secular values, such as antidiscrimination.

scholarly journals What Can We Expect of Law and Religion in 2020?

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-86
Author(s):  
Leslie C. Griffin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Church And State ◽  
The United States ◽  
Establishment Clause ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
Religious Person ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Government

The United States is in a religion-friendly mood—or at least its three branches of government are. The Supreme Court is turning away from its Free Exercise Clause analysis that currently holds that every religious person must obey the law. At the same time, the Court is rejecting its old Establishment Clause analysis that the government cannot practice or support religion. The old model of separation of church and state is gone, replaced by an ever-growing unity between church and state. This Article examines how much union of church and state this Court might establish.

Part II, 5 Legal Protection of Religious Freedom

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahdar Rex ◽  
Leigh Ian
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
International Law ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Constitutional Protection ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
The United Kingdom

This chapter first considers the broad nature of ‘religious freedom’. It then outlines the various systems of constitutional protection for religious liberty in different nations such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and so on, as well as the guarantees in international law for religious rights. Next, it explores the difficult question of how one defines ‘religion’ for the purpose of recognizing religious liberty.

Competing Concepts of Religious Freedom Through the Lens of Religious Product Authentication Laws

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-332
Author(s):  
Eoin Daly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
State Neutrality ◽  
Conceptual Necessity ◽  
Constitutional Jurisprudence

Religious product authentication laws, predicated on conceptions of doctrinal authenticity, risk curtailing the religious freedom of dissenting adherents engaged in non-orthodox forms of the regulated practice. They may also entail discrimination between, or even the ‘establishment’ of, competing doctrinal viewpoints within religions. This raises important constitutional and theoretical questions surrounding the conceptual necessity, to religious freedom, of state neutrality in religious controversies. Comparative church–state jurisprudence reveals strikingly different approaches to the question of the compatibility of religious product authentication laws with constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and state neutrality. The religion clauses of the United States Constitution preclude regulatory schemes incorporating doctrinal concepts of authenticity, whereas a failed constitutional challenge in Ireland (to a law regulating the sale of Mass cards in Ireland) rejected the contention that such laws denied constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and non-discrimination on religious grounds. This article argues that these contrasting approaches to the constitutionality of religious product authentication laws illustrate a deeper conflict surrounding the very concept of religious freedom. In particular, this comparative constitutional jurisprudence crystallises broader normative debates surrounding the competing claims of recognition and neutrality with regard to religion.

The Efforts of the United States to Secure Religious Liberty in a Commercial Treaty with Mexico, 1825-1831

1972 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilkins B. Winn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
Practical Operation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Liberty Of Conscience ◽  
Inalienable Rights ◽  
Universal Application

The subject of a commerical treaty quickly emerged after the United States recognition of the independence of Mexico in 1822. To negotiate this treaty Joel Roberts Poinsett was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico. Since Mexico had modeled its constitution after that of the United States, Henry Clay, Secretary of State, instructed Poinsett to make himself available to explain the practical operation and advantages of our system to Mexico. Inherent in our constitution and system was freedom of religion, establishment of which in our relations with Mexico constituted an objective of Poinsett's mission. Clay incorporated into Poinsett's instructions those which his predecessor, John Quincy Adams, on May 27, 1823, addressed to Richard Clough Anderson, Jr., Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia. Adams had emphasized the importance of inserting the principle of religious liberty in the commercial treaty with Colombia. Liberty of conscience and of religious freedom were among the usual objects of a commercial treaty. He expostulated that “civil, political, commercial, and religious liberty, are but various modifications of one great principle founded in the inalienable rights of human nature, and before the universal application of which the colonial domination of Europe over the American hemisphere, has fallen, and is crumbling into dust.”

Religious Liberty and the Founding Fathers

1990 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-102
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Hollis ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil Liberties ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Natural Rights ◽  
Religious Liberty ◽  
United States Constitution ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The People

This essay traces the development of the idea of religious liberty from its origins among the "Commonwealthmen" in seventeenth-century England to its embodiment in the United States Constitution. The Commonwealthmen believed that the theory of natural law-natural rights guaranteed civil liberties, including religious liberty, and that these natural rights should be protected by the state. The Commonwealthmen also believed in a fundamental constitution derived from the people rather than the state, and the concept of individual sovereignty.

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