The Free Exercise Clause that guarantees religious freedom is much weaker than most people realize. While freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and even the establishment clause are subject to highest “strict scrutiny” levels of protection, the free exercise of religion receives the lowest level of protection – the “rational basis test.”
Too broad an exception from neutral, generally applicable law, and protections against discrimination vanish. Too narrow an exception and free exercise of religion protections vanish. What is clear is that these cases will continue to make their way through the lower courts with differing results until the Supreme Court makes a decision.
Taking the significance of the public health emergency and religious beliefs into account when deciding what to do in these circumstances is difficult. It is too easy to dismiss religious claims as unscientific and foolish in the face of a measles outbreak, but in so doing it behooves the parties to seek a compromise
Whether a religious symbol or edifice needs to masquerade as a secular structure in order to escape Establishment Clause scrutiny is at issue in two major cases at the United State Supreme Court.
A bill making its way through the California legislature would make it legal to encourage the terminally ill to engage in physician-assisted suicide.
Although his Supreme Court case was bolstered by a cake troll on the right, cake trolls on the left are making life miserable for Colorado baker Jack Phillips.
The Senate has stripped language from a House spending bill that would have stopped the Internal Revenue Service from revoking the tax-exempt status of non-profit organizations that engage in campaigning for political candidates.
According to Sessions, the Task Force is designed to ensure that the Justice Department and other executive agencies apply the religious liberty protections already present in federal law.
All this fight over prayer should give Christians pause for thought. Have we misused prayer in our zeal to bring America back to God? Whether intended or not, many have viewed the forceful efforts of Christians to preserve public prayer as motivated by the desire to exploit it for purposes of proselytizing, promoting Christianity, or disparaging other religions.
On March 12, 2018, Yanghee Lee, the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar for the United Nations told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that, “I am becoming more convinced that the crimes committed following 9 October 2016 and 25 August 2017 bear the hallmarks of genocide and call in the strongest terms for accountability.”