Religious Freedom
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
So, am I free to start a religion that believes all children should be killed before they turn eight (and evil)? It would be a firm tenet of this church that we should be anxiously engaged in the work of blowing up elementary schools, bringing salvation to all the little kids inside. And maybe we believe that the teachers and other adults who are ‘taken’ along with the children actually go straight to heaven as well; martyrs for the truth. Congress can’t stop me, or else they’re preventing me from living my religion.
Or are there limits to the exercise of religion; is there some point at which activities inspired by religious ideals may be proscribed by government?
I think the attempt to define the limits of religious freedom are problematic. I’ve tried to formulate a set of rules, but I can’t think of everything that a religion ought to be allowed to do. I prefer the principle the Founders took when writing the Constitution — we don’t define what people are free to do, we assume the government can do nothing except what we specifically allow.
In relation to religion, then, the government is not allowed to regulate religious behavior. That is, government may not regulate any behavior on the grounds of motive. If the government wants to ban a specific behavior, it must ban it for all people, in all cases.
Take my silly example of blowing up schools. Murder is illegal for anyone, including members of my horrible church. We are allowed to meet on Sundays in a chapel that we have legally purchased, and we can even advocate the general destruction of children because everyone is allowed to engage in that type of free speech.
So, if a religion advocates the use of hallucinogens in religious ceremonies — should they be granted a special exemption by Congress to use them? No. That would be a law ‘respecting’ religion.
What if a religion wants to perform polygamous marriages? No. Nobody is allowed to do that, and no particular religious group should be granted an exception.
So, should religions be granted tax-exempt status? No. Unless we grant tax-exempt status to ALL non-profit organizations, and religions must conform to exactly the same regulations that all other groups do. (Which, incidentally, is what we do, here in the US.)
I’d be interested to hear anybody’s objections to this line of reasoning. It seems to me to be a pretty good solution to the problems we face with religious freedom questions.