What does "freedom of religion" really mean?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

With the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints in the news again, this time about allegations of child abuse, this question comes up once again. According to some, the members of this group have the right to practice their religion without any government interference. But the government has a long history of doing just this, starting with the LDS Church in the nineteenth century. Utah was not allowed to enter the Union as the State of Deseret because of the practice of polygamy. It was only when the LDS outlawed the practice that Utah became a state. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah for a summary of this)

Native Americans were long denied the right to freely practice their religions, and it took The American Indian Religious Freedom Act to give them the right to practice ceremony--and even then their rights were curtailed:

n the case of Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association <9> a logging company wanted to build a road through forest areas where Karok, Tolowa, and Yurok tribes searched for their spiritual powers. The case resulted in a decision by the Supreme Court that the logging company, for the greater economic good of the American society, had the right to build the road. <10>

The AIRFA again came into direct legal proceedings during the case of Employment Division v. Smith in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The case was originally an unemployment compensation claim, which had been denied to two workers at a drug rehabilitation centre. The pair were fired when found using peyote, which they had used as part of their traditional worship service. The case became more serious when the pair argued that the denial of benefits was, in effect, a form of religious persecution and infringed their first amendment rights because they were Native Americans who used the peyote ceremonially, opposed to recreational use. However, the Supreme Court judged that the Oregon law was constitutional, and therefore, the denial of unemployment benefits was permissible. <11>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Religious_Freedom_Act


I think the thing to remember is that, although in theory freedom of religion is guaranteed, the government can curtail any religion if it feels the need to. For more information on this matter, and to study the history of the court and religion, you may wish to look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Exercise_Clause_of_the_First_Amendment

[panader0]

1. To me it means freedom from religion.

When I registered for the draft (late) in 1968, I told the guy at the draft board that I wanted to be a consciencious objector. He asked me if I was Amish or Quaker. I said no, I just don't belive in killing people I don't know for reasons I don't believe in. He said, forget it. Now peyote, it's been a while since I've done it. Dried or fresh, great visuals.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Do you think it should be available for all to use?

Personally, I think all drugs should be legalized, taxed, and regulated. But there are some who say that only Native Americans should be allowed to use peyote in ceremony. There is a big discussion now on whether or not non-Natives walking the Red Road should also be allowed to have eagle feathers, peyote, etc, in order to practice ceremony.

[Warpy]

3. It took until the late 60s and early 70s for the rights

of the Pueblo people here in NM to hold their own religious ceremonies. They still keep the sacred stuff hidden from outsiders because they're all too aware that their rights can be stripped by the next batch of intolerant nanny staters to gain power in the future. Peyote is a small but very important part of their culture and the drug warriors would love to stamp it out, as one example. The Catholic Church isn't too keen on much of their ceremonial life, either.

IMO, any government that tries to promise religious freedom has a very fine line to walk between allowing total freedom of conscience and protecting the more vulnerable citizens from religious exploitation. I think that nearly everyone agrees that parents have the right to raise their kids in their own religion, no matter how nutty we think it is. The dividing line seems to be when those children are expelled as surplus males or married off below the age of consent for females.

Polygamy as practiced by the FLDS is an evil system that harms women and children and should not fall under the banner of religious freedom.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. A fine line, indeed

personally, since peyote and ganja (both herbs used in religions and yet considered illegal drugs here) don't hurt anyone, I don't see why their use should be curtailed, but it obviously has been, while polygamy (and its abuses) has been allowed to continue.

[silverlib]

5. The FDLS situation is not a religious freedom case...

I absolutely agree that our government has, and will continue to waiver in justice regarding religious freedom.

BUT

It is an abuse case. In Texas it is very difficult to remove a child from their parents. Everything possible is done in the was of services to avoid removal and judges are often hesitant - even when they should not be hesitant. The FDLS will try to make this a religious freedom case - but religious freedoms are not inclusive of abuse of any kind. I spoke with an LDS friend of mine yesterday evening and he explained that the LDS has been wanting this facility closed down for quite sometime. It like calling the wacko in Waco a Christian - Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church a Baptist, etc. Even though I do not understand or comprehend the beliefs of the Mormons, I do absolutely respect their religious rights. These people are in a cult - not a religion.


From a post by Ilsa
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24009286 /

Carolyn Jessop, who was one of the wives of a polygamist-sect leader, talks with TODAY's Matt Lauer about life on a fundamentalist compound.

snip

A polygamous community in Texas that follows the teaching of The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints practices pedophilia, torture and child abuse under the guise of a religion, according to a woman who escaped the sect with her eight children five years ago.


snip
The alleged control began in infancy.

“The method he would use with infants was a form of water torture,” Jessop said of her former husband. “He would spank the baby until it was screaming out of control, and then he would hold the baby faceup under a tap of running water so it couldn’t breathe. He would do this repeatedly. Sometimes, it would go on for an hour, until the baby was so exhausted it couldn’t cry anymore. This method he called ‘breaking them.’”

To a child, the abuse becomes normal, she said, and resistance becomes unthinkable to most. “With this level of mind control, it’s something you’re born into and it’s generational. The babies born into this, they don’t stand a chance from the beginning,” she said.

snip
~~~~~~~~~
My God. How could a mother listen to and watch her baby being tortured like that without trying to take the baby and run away? it must have been the conditioning.

****
Just my thoughts.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. Oh, I agree

but what prompted my post was that some people were defending the FLDS folks by using the argument of "freedom of religion". To my mind, a "church" that practices violence and abuse of children is not a church.

[silverlib]

7. Absolutely...

I have a dear cousin (I say that because I really do love him) that thinks this situation is government interference. I also heard from someone today that thinks Rick Perry (Governor Good Hair) is behind this to make Romney and the Mormons look bad so that he has a better shot at the vice-presidential choice.

If I wasn't so involved (I won't get into that on this forum, but have shared it in other posts)I might by the Gov. Good Hair conspiracy myself.

In Waco, the women and children died, and I do think the government went way overboard - Hopefully the lesson was learned and these victims are making it out alive and no one is dying. Perhaps something was learned?

I think your OP offers up a topic that will provoke a very good discussion.

[JerseygirlCT]

8. I think it means that so long as your practice of religion harms

no one else, you are perfectly free to believe and practice as you will.

But as with the exercise of other rights, person A's rights end at person B's nose.

Any time that religion and religious freedom is used to cover the abuse of other people, that nullifies any claim to "rights".

In your other examples, the use of illegal drugs doesn't really harm someone other than potentially the practitioner, right? So I can't see the problem. Were they feeding the drugs to kids, for instance, then I think they would go too far.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. As far as I know,

the Native American Church uses peyote only with adults, and not everyone has to use it. I knew a road man with that church, and attended a sweat with him, where he talked about the use of peyote in their ceremonies.

In the '90s, a group tried to set up a church in Arkansas that used marijuana in a sacred manner. It was based upon Rastafarianism, but the state raided the place and arrested everyone, saying that they were using religion as an excuse to break the law. The state only let the church be around for a few months before this happened. I find it striking that the response to pot use was so swift, whereas the wholesale endangerment of children has been ignored by Utah and Arizona for years.

[JerseygirlCT]

17. Yes, that's pretty amazing, isn't it?

Priorities pretty awfully screwed up there.

I don't smoke, but as long as we're talking about adults, and they're not troubling non-smoking people with it (whether cigarettes or pot) I can't see why pot is such a big freaking deal.

Children have been abused for years and years at these compounds. And finally, finally, they're being freed - and suddenly it's a religious freedom issue?

Go figure.

[varkam]

10. We are a nation of rights.

To be able to believe and practice as we choose is one of our fundamental rights as Americans, but even that is not without limitations. The way I see things, your right to practice religion as you see fit stops where another's rights begin. In other words, so long as what you're doing doesn't limit the autonomy or right to self-determination of anyone else, then have at it. When you start abusing children or denying emergency contraception on the basis of your personally held religious views, you have skeedaddled past your rights and are now infringing on the rights of others.

[moggie]

11. Should religions be granted extra rights?

For example, there exist laws governing what you're allowed to do to animals. If your religion requires animal sacrifice (in a particular way), should you be allowed to do things to animals which your non-religious (or differently-religious) neighbour would be arrested for doing? This is not like victimless example of peyote use.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

12. You thinking of Santarina?

There was a Santarina priest in Hurst, Texas, I believe, who was arrested for sacrificing chickens. Don't know what the outcome of the trial was. I know that the defense was that chickens are killed and eaten all the time in the US, while the prosecution was saying it was more of a health issue.

[moggie]

13. I was thinking more hypothetically than that

As soon as you point to a particular real religion as an example, you bring a lot of extra baggage on board, and the discussion can get derailed. For example, since Santeria is of Afro-Caribbean origin, if you suggest that certain Santerian rites should be illegal, someone will accuse you of racism.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

15. Actually, in the Hurst case, I don't think racism was a factor

Which is rather surprising, I think.

[varkam]

14. I don't have a problem with that.

I think there has to be a balance between self-determination (of which the FOR is a part) and the rule of law. Cases like this are tricky, I think, and can be argued both ways. I personally don't have a problem with it, primarily because the rights that are afforded folks like you and me are not afforded to, say, chickens and goats. That's not to say that we don't have an ethical obligation to them, but you won't (or shouldn't) do ten years in the clink if you run one down in your car.

I think that if the state steps in and says that "you can't do such-and-such with your religion", then at a certain level it is taking over that individual's right to self-determination. That's only true up to a point, though. When you move from sacrificing chickens to sacrificing humans, I think that the unlucky sacrifcee's rights outweigh the sacrificer's right to self-determination.

That's just my .02.

[Jim__]

16. That's a hard question. I don't think either "freedom" or "religion" are well-defined.

But, since we do have a constitutional government, and free exercise of religion is explicitly protected in the constitution, I think that the only religious exercises that should be stopped by the government are the one's that violate another part of the constitution. Of course, you raised a good point above about starting a religion just so that you can break the law.

Still, I like the comment about the Warren Court in the link that you posted:

Subsequently, the Warren Court adopted an expansive view of the clause, the "compelling interest" doctrine (whereby a state must show a compelling interest in restricting religion-related activities), but later decisions have reduced the scope of this interpretation.

"Compelling interest". I miss the Warren Court. Can you imagine the roberts court arriving at that decision?