The Supreme Court's 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop decision presented the Court with questions regarding the proper reconciliation of two principles.  What were those two principles? 

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Here is what the majority opinion said:

The case presents difficult questions as to the proper reconciliation of at least two principles. The first is the authority of a State and its governmental entities to protect the rights and dignity of gay persons who are, or wish to be, married but who face discrimination when they seek goods or services. The second is the right of all persons to exercise fundamental freedoms under the First Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado C.R. Comm'n, 201 L. Ed. 2d 35, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 1723 (2018).

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.

The term "odious" is not a frequently used word, but it found its way into the Supreme Court's Trinity Lutheran decision.  What did the Supreme Court find to be so odious? 

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Answer: Trinity Lutheran had qualified for a governmental grant to receive recycled tires to be used with playground equipment.  But the State of Missouri had denied the application simply because Trinity Lutheran was a religious institution.  To that the Supreme Court said: "The consequence is, in all likelihood, a few extra scraped knees. But the exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand."  Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S.Ct. 2012, 2024-25 (2017). 

In case you are curious, according to Dictionary.com the word "odious" is an adjective meaning: (1) deserving or causing hatred; hateful; detestable.  (2) highly offensive; repugnant; disgusting.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/odious (last visited October 16, 2022).

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.

True or False: A state violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment when it expressly denies a qualified religious entity a public benefit solely because of its religious character.

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Answer: True.  "The State has pursued its preferred policy to the point of expressly denying a qualified religious entity a public benefit solely because of its religious character. Under our precedents, that goes too far. The Department’s policy violates the Free Exercise Clause."  Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S.Ct. 2012, 2024 (2017)

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.

What limitation is imposed when a state wants to impose an even greater separation of church and State than that ensured under the Establishment Clause? 

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Answer: The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.  Here's what the Supreme Court said about that in 2017:

"As we said when considering Missouri’s same policy preference on a prior occasion, the state interest asserted here—in achieving greater separation of church and State than is already ensured under the Establishment Clause of the Federal Constitution—is limited by the Free Exercise Clause.'"  Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S.Ct. 2012, 2024 (2017) (citing Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 276 (1981)). 

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.

Under what circumstances is a governmental entity lawfully permitted under the First Amendment to discriminate against a religious institution?

A For a state interest that is of the strictest order.

B For a state interest that is most narrowly tailored. 

C For a state interest that is of the greatest concern. 

D For a state interest that is of the highest order. 

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ANSWER: D.  See how the Supreme Court addressed this in 2017:

The State in this case expressly requires Trinity Lutheran to renounce its religious character in order to participate in an otherwise generally available public benefit program, for which it is fully qualified. Our cases make clear that such a condition imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that must be subjected to the “most rigorous” scrutiny.  Lukumi, 508 U.S., at 546, 113 S.Ct. 2217.4.  Under that stringent standard, only a state interest “of the highest order” can justify the Department’s discriminatory policy.  McDaniel, 435 U.S., at 628, 98 S.Ct. 1322. 

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S.Ct. 2012, 2024 (2017).

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.

Legally speaking, how is the phrase “religious exercise” defined? 

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Under RLUIPA Congress has defined “religious exercise” very broadly to include “any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.”  42 U.S.C.   § 2000cc–5(7)(A).

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.

Let's do a multiple choice Religion Law Quiz today! Which of the following statements is the correct one? 

A The Free Exercise Clause protects against direct coercion or penalties on the free exercise of religion.

B The Free Exercise Clause protects against indirect coercion or penalties on the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions.

C The Free Exercise Clause protects against overt coercion or penalties on the free exercise of religion.

D The Free Exercise Clause protects against penalties on the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions.

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The Answer is "B".  You will see it in the following Supreme Court quote:

It is true the Department has not criminalized the way Trinity Lutheran worships or told the Church that it cannot subscribe to a certain view of the Gospel. But, as the Department itself acknowledges, the Free Exercise Clause protects against “indirect coercion or penalties on the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions.”     Lyng, 485 U.S., at 450, 108 S.Ct. 1319. As the Court put it more than 50 years ago, “[i]t is too late in the day to doubt that the liberties of religion and expression may be infringed by the denial of or placing of conditions upon a benefit or privilege.”  Sherbert, 374 U.S., at 404, 83 S.Ct. 1790; see also McDaniel, 435 U.S., at 633, 98 S.Ct. 1322 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) (The “proposition—that the law does not interfere with free exercise because it does not directly prohibit religious activity, but merely conditions eligibility for office on its abandonment—is ... squarely rejected by precedent”).

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S.Ct. 2012, 2022 (2017) (emphasis added).

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.

Are employers required to accommodate the religious beliefs and practices of applicants and employees?

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Answer: This question (and its answer) comes from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at the following website: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/what-you-should-know-workplace-religious-accommodation  (last visited January 13, 2024).  Here's how the EEOC answered that question:

"Yes. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on religion. This includes refusing to accommodate an employee's sincerely held religious beliefs or practices unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship (more than a minimal burden on operation of the business). A religious practice may be sincerely held by an individual even if newly adopted, not consistently observed, or different from the commonly followed tenets of the individual's religion."

It is important to keep in mind that, like virtually all laws, there are some exceptions to the general rules. 

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.

True or False: A church’s determination regarding an ecclesiastical matter will be binding on a civil court. 

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Answer: True.  Ecclesiastical matters include doctrines, creeds, forms of worship, church laws and regulations, membership in the church, church discipline, excommunication/expulsion from the church, appointment/removal of a pastor; employment (hiring, firing and retention of church employees performing ecclesiastical functions), etc.  See e.g., B.B. v. Methodist Church of Shelbina, Missouri, 541 S.W.3d 644, 655 (Mo.App. E.D. 2017); Heartland Presbytery v. Gashland Presbyterian Church, 364 S.W.3d 575, 586 (Mo.App. W.D. 2012); Weaver v. African Methodist Episcopal Church, Inc., 54 S.W.3d 575, 580 (Mo.App. W.D. 2001); Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol Cemetery Ass'n v. Levy, 923 S.W.2d 439, 442–43 (Mo.App. E.D. 1996); see also Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for the U.S. and Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 708–11, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 2380–88, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976).  “The United States Supreme Court has recognized that when a church renders a decision on a purely ecclesiastical matter, ‘the Constitution requires that civil courts accept their decisions as binding upon them.’”  Beth Hamedrosh Hagodol Cemetery Ass'n v. Levy, 923 S.W.2d 439, 442 (Mo.App. E.D. 1996) (citing Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 725, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 2387–88, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976)); see also Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 606–09, 99 S.Ct. 3020, 3026–28, 61 L.Ed.2d 775 (1979).

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.

Today's quiz is short.  How are RLUIPA and RFRA similar?

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RLUIPA allows prisoners “to seek religious accommodations pursuant to the same standard as set forth in RFRA.”  Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente Uniõ do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 436, 126 S.Ct. 1211, 163 L.Ed.2d 1017 (2006).

Remember, the Supreme Court has stated:

RFRA prohibits the “Government [from] substantially burden[ing] a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless the Government “demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb–1(a), (b) (emphasis added).

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682, 705, 134 S. Ct. 2751, 2767, 189 L. Ed. 2d 675 (2014).

Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.