[Download] "Why Conservatives, And Others, Have Trouble Supporting the Meaningful Enforcement of Free Exercise Rights." by Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Why Conservatives, And Others, Have Trouble Supporting the Meaningful Enforcement of Free Exercise Rights.
- Author : Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
- Release Date : January 22, 2010
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 277 KB
Description
If there are specific areas of life where the role of government should be particularly limited, religion is certainly one of those areas. It is not the government's business to interfere with or attempt to influence religious belief and practice. Democracy is a wonderful system of self-government, but religious truth is not determined through legislative deliberation or at the ballot box. (1) Unlike the remarks of the other scholars on the religious liberty panel, this Essay focuses on the Free Exercise Clause rather than the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. It is clear that compared to the people of other western democracies, Americans are a particularly religious people. (2) Further, the First Amendment explicitly protects the exercise of religion. Yet American free exercise jurisprudence is shallow at best. If free exercise doctrine is compared to a fundamental right that is taken seriously, such as freedom of speech, the difference is apparent. The latter is robust; the former is anemic. (3)