A First Amendment Right to Burning Bush: Empowering the Free Exercise Clause to Protect Religious use of Psychedelic Drugs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McDonald
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
Psychedelic Drugs

Editorial: The "Free Exercise" Clause of the First Amendment: Retrospect and Prospect

1975 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.L.G.
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause

Religious Marginality and the Free Exercise Clause

1983 ◽  
Vol 77 (3) ◽  
pp. 652-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Way ◽  
Barbara J. Burt
Keyword(s):  
First Amendment ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Marginal Groups ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
Judicial Opinions ◽  
Free Exercise Of Religion ◽  
The Universe

This article offers a measure of judicial legitimation of marginal religious groups in litigation involving the free exercise of religion clause of the First Amendment. Throughout the greater part of history, marginal religious faiths have found the path to acceptance filled with legal obstacles. Pfeffer (1974) noted that legitimation of marginal groups occurs either when the secular norms change or when such groups change their religious doctrines. The Pfeffer thesis is generally consistent with the sect-church continuum defined by sociologists of religion. In the research reported below, we examined an alternative thesis, namely that official legitimation by the judiciary of marginal religions is a function of their marginality. We compared the results of the universe of all reported state and federal judicial opinions from 1946 through 1956 and 1970 through 1980. We found substantial increases in the percentage of successfully litigated free exercise claims, and furthermore, that success in litigating these claims is closely associated with those factors that distinguish these groups as marginal.

The Competing Perspectives of the Religion Clauses

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Howard Gillman ◽  
Erwin Chemerinsky
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
American History ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Establishment Clause ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
The Future ◽  
Political Divide

This chapter describes the recent Supreme Court cases dealing with the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, while also previewing the issues likely to arise in the future. It identifies how for both of these provisions there are two competing philosophies, which are titled “accommodation” and “separation.” “Accommodationists” see little as violating the Establishment Clause but want the Free Exercise Clause to be aggressively used to create an exception to general laws based on religious beliefs. “Separationists” see the Establishment Clause as creating a secular government and reject special exceptions for religion. At this point in American history, there is a political divide: conservatives tend to favor the accommodation approach, while liberals favor the separationist view.

Religious Expression in Public Schools

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin R. Pregent ◽  
Nathan C. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Establishment Clause ◽  
Religious Activities ◽  
Religious Expression ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
The Public ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
The Us ◽  
Teachers And Students

There is perhaps no better setting that exhibits the perennial tension between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause than American public schools. The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the US Constitution ensures that students may retain their religious beliefs, practices, identities, and rights when they enter public schools. The free exercise principle also protects government employees; however, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prevents teachers and administrators, as agents of the state, from entangling the public school in religious activities or engaging in school speech that advances or endorses religion. This chapter illustrates how these two principles––free exercise of religion and non-establishment of religion––form the concept known as religious freedom. Attempting to strike this balance are public schools, which are required to serve the entire public, whether religious or not. Those within the school—both teachers and students—may be religious and wish to express their religion or to express their critique of or nonaffiliation with religion. This chapter explores different forms of religious expression for both students and teachers and details the unconstitutional nature of laws that seek to target religion for regulation or fail to accommodate religion in public schools.

Bessard v. California Community Colleges and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act: Implications for Public Administration

1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-288
Author(s):  
David C. Wyld
Keyword(s):  
Community Colleges ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
California Community Colleges ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
First Case ◽  
Employment Setting ◽  
Religious Freedom Restoration Act

This article examines the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the first case in the employment setting decided under it, Bessard v. California Community Colleges. After exploring the judicial and legislative heritage of the RFRA and its relationship to the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, the facts and decision in the Bessard case are analyzed. The implications of the RFRA and the Bessard case are then detailed.

scholarly journals Religious Neutrality in the Early Republic

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jud Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Natural Right ◽  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause ◽  
Conscientious Objectors ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Right ◽  
The Government ◽  
Constitutional Meaning ◽  
Military Draft

Governmental neutrality is the heart of the modern Free Exercise Clause. Mindful of this core principle, which prevents the government from treating individuals differently because of their religious convictions, the Supreme Court held in Employment Division v. Smith that a neutral law can be constitutionally applied despite any incidental burdens it might impose on an individual�s exercise of religion. Conscientious objectors such as Quakers, for instance, do not have a constitutional right to be exempt from a military draft. Thus, neutrality now forms both the core and the outer limit of constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom. Judged according to founding-era views, however, this interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause is deeply problematic. Although historical scholarship has focused on the particular issue of religious exemptions, this Article takes a different approach by reexamining early debates about neutrality itself. These neglected sources demonstrate that modern cases invert the founding-era conception of religious freedom. For the Founders, religious freedom was primarily an unalienable natural right to practice religion�not a right that depended on whether a law was neutral. This evidence illuminates not only a significant transition in constitutional meaning since the Founding but also the extent to which modern priorities often color our understanding of the past.

Madison, Washington, Jefferson, and the Free Exercise Clause

2010 ◽  
pp. 166-195
Author(s):  
Vincent Phillip Munoz
Keyword(s):  
Free Exercise ◽  
Free Exercise Clause

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.

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