“The Free Exercise Clause . . . withdraws from legislative power, state and federal, the exertion of any restraint on the free exercise of religion. Its purpose is to secure religious liberty in the individual by prohibiting any invasions there by civil authority.”227 It bars “governmental regulation of religious beliefs as such,”228 prohibiting misuse of secular governmental programs “to impede the observance of one or all religions or . . . to discriminate invidiously between religions . . . even though the burden may be characterized as being only indirect.”229 Freedom of conscience is the basis of the free exercise clause, and government may not penalize or discriminate against an individual or a group of individuals because of their religious views nor may it compel persons to affirm any particular beliefs.230 Interpretation is complicated, however, by the fact that exercise of religion usually entails ritual or other practices that constitute “conduct” rather than pure “belief.” When it comes to protecting conduct as free exercise, the Court has been inconsistent.231 It has long been held that the Free Exercise Clause does not necessarily prevent government from requiring the doing of some act or forbidding the doing of some act merely because religious beliefs underlie the conduct in question.232 What has changed over the years is the Court’s willingness to hold that some religiously motivated conduct is protected from generally applicable prohibitions.
227 Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 222-23 (1963).
228 Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S 398, 402 (1963) (emphasis in original).
229 Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 607 (1961).
230 Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 402 (1963); Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961).
231 Academics as well as the Justices grapple with the extent to which religious practices as well as beliefs are protected by the Free Exercise Clause. For contrasting academic views of the origins and purposes of the Free Exercise Clause, compare McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103 HARV. L. REV. 1410 (1990) (concluding that constitutionally compelled exemptions from generally applicable laws are consistent with the Clause’s origins in religious pluralism) with Marshall, The Case Against the Constitutionally Compelled Free Exercise Exemption, 40 CASE W. RES. L. REV. 357 (1989-90) (arguing that such exemptions establish an invalid preference for religious beliefs over non-religious beliefs).
232 E.g., Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879); Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961); United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252 (1982); Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990).
The relationship between the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses varies with the expansiveness of interpretation of the two clauses. In a general sense both clauses proscribe governmental involvement with and interference in religious matters, but there is possible tension between a requirement of governmental neutrality derived from the Establishment Clause and a Free-Exercise-derived requirement that government accommodate some religious practices.233 So far, the Court has harmonized interpretation by denying that free-exercise-mandated accommodations create establishment violations, and also by upholding some legislative accommodations not mandated by free exercise requirements. “This Court has long recognized that government may (and sometimes must) accommodate religious practices and that it may do so without violating the Establishment Clause.”234 “There is room for play in the joints productive of a benevolent neutrality which will permit religious exercise to exist without [governmental] sponsorship and without interference.”11 In holding that a state could not deny unemployment benefits to Sabbatarians who refused Saturday work, for example, the Court denied that it was “fostering an ‘establishment’ of the Seventh-Day Adventist religion, for the extension of unemployment benefits to Sabbatarians in common with Sunday worshippers reflects nothing more than the governmental obligation of neutrality in the face of religious differences, and does not represent that involvement of religious with secular institutions which it is the object of the Establishment Clause to forestall.”235 Legislation granting religious exemptions not held to have been required by the Free Exercise Clause has also been upheld against Establishment Clause challenge,236 although it is also possible for legislation to go too far in promoting free exercise.237
Government need not, however, offer the same accommodations to secular entities that it extends to religious practitioners in order to facilitate their religious exercise; “[r]eligious accommodations . . . need not ‘come packaged with benefits to secular entities.’”12
“Play in the joints” can work both ways, the Court ruled in upholding a state’s exclusion of theology students from a college scholarship program.13 Although the state could have included theology students in its scholarship program without offending the Establishment Clause, its choice not to fund religious training did not offend the Free Exercise Clause even though that choice singled out theology students for exclusion.14 Refusal to fund religious training, the Court observed, was “far milder” than restrictions on religious practices that have been held to offend the Free Exercise Clause.15
233 “The Court has struggled to find a neutral course between the two Religion Clauses, both of which are cast in absolute terms, and either of which, if expanded to a logical extreme, would tend to clash with the other.” Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 668-69 (1970).
234 Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n, 480 U.S. 136, 144-45 (1987). A similar accommodative approach was suggested in Walz: “there is room for play in the joints productive of a benevolent neutrality which will permit religious exercise to exist without [governmental] sponsorship and without interference.” 397 U.S. at 669.
11 Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U.S. at 669. See also Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712, 718 (2004); Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 713 (2005).
235 Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 409 (1963). Accord, Thomas v. Review Bd., 450 U.S. 707, 719-20 (1981). Dissenting in Thomas, Justice Rehnquist argued that Sherbert and Thomas created unacceptable tensions between the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses, and that requiring the States to accommodate persons like Sherbert and Thomas because of their religious beliefs ran the risk of “establishing” religion under the Court’s existing tests. He argued further, however, that less expansive interpretations of both clauses would eliminate this artificial tension. Thus, Justice Rehnquist would have interpreted the Free Exercise Clause as not requiring government to grant exemptions from general requirements that may burden religious exercise but that do not prohibit religious practices outright, and would have interpreted the Establishment Clause as not preventing government from voluntarily granting religious exemptions. 450 U.S. at 720-27. By 1990 these views had apparently gained ascendancy, Justice Scalia’s opinion for the Court in the “peyote” case suggesting that accommodation should be left to the political process, i.e., that states could constitutionally provide exceptions in their drug laws for sacramental peyote use, even though such exceptions are not constitutionally required. Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 890 (1990).
236 See, e.g., Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 664 (upholding property tax exemption for religious organizations); Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987) (upholding Civil Rights Act exemption allowing religious institutions to restrict hiring to members of religion); Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437, 453-54 (1971) (interpreting conscientious objection exemption from military service). Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709 (2005) (upholding a provision of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 that prohibits governments from imposing a “substantial burden on the religious exercise” of an institutionalized person unless the burden furthers a “compelling governmental interest”).
237 See, e.g., Committee for Pub. Educ. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 788-89 (1973) (tuition reimbursement grants to parents of parochial school children violate Establishment Clause in spite of New York State’s argument that program was designed to promote free exercise by enabling low-income parents to send children to church schools); Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1 (1989) (state sales tax exemption for religious publications violates the Establishment Clause) (plurality opinion); Board of Educ. of Kiryas Joel Village v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687, 706-07 (1994) (”accommodation is not a principle without limits;” one limitation is that “neutrality as among religions must be honored”).
12 Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 724 (2005) (quoting Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327, 338 (1987)).
13 Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712 (2004).
14 540 U.S. at 720-21. Excluding theology students but not students training for other professions was permissible, the Court explained, because “[t]raining someone to lead a congregation is an essentially religious endeavor,” and the Constitution’s special treatment of religion finds “no counterpart with respect to other callings or professions.” Id. at 721.
15 540 U.S. at 720-21 (distinguishing Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993) (law aimed at restricting ritual of a single religious group); McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U.S. 618 (1978) (law denying ministers the right to serve as delegates to a constitutional convention); and Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963) (among the cases prohibiting denial of benefits to Sabbatarians)).
Last modified: June 9, 2014