What religious freedoms are you thankful for?  Stated alternatively, how would your life be different without religious freedom?

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Congratulations! Today, you score 100% on this Quiz.  I invite and encourage you to express to someone the religious freedoms for which you are thankful.  I also invite you to think about how your life would be different if you did not have religious freedom. 

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.

In 2019 the Supreme Court identified four considerations which show that retaining religiously expressive monuments that were previously established is very different from adopting or erecting new ones.  What were the four considerations that the Supreme Court identified? 

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The answer can be seen in the following blurb which comes from the Court’s synopsis from its 2019 decision in American Legion v. American Humanist Association:

(a) At least four considerations show that retaining established, religiously expressive monuments, symbols, and practices is quite different from erecting or adopting new ones. First, these cases often concern monuments, symbols, or practices that were first established long ago, and thus, identifying their original purpose or purposes may be especially difficult. See Salazar v. Buono, 559 U.S. 700, 130 S.Ct. 1803, 176 L.Ed.2d 634. Second, as time goes by, the purposes associated with an established monument, symbol, or practice often multiply, as in the Ten Commandments monuments addressed in Van Orden and McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky., 545 U.S. 844, 125 S.Ct. 2722, 162 L.Ed.2d 729. Even if the monument’s original purpose was infused with religion, the passage of time may obscure that sentiment and the monument may be retained for the sake of its historical significance or its place in a common cultural heritage. Third, the message of a monument, symbol, or practice may evolve, Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460, 477, 129 S.Ct. 1125, 172 L.Ed.2d 853, as is the case with a city name like Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Arizona’s motto “Ditat Deus” (“God enriches”), adopted in 1864; or Maryland’s flag, which has included two crosses since 1904. Familiarity itself can become a reason for preservation. Fourth, when time’s passage imbues a religiously expressive monument, symbol, or practice with this kind of familiarity and historical significance, removing it may no longer appear neutral, especially to the local community. The passage of time thus gives rise to a strong presumption of constitutionality. Pp. 2080 – 2085.

Am. Legion v. Am. Humanist Ass'n, 204 L. Ed. 2d 452, 139 S. Ct. 2067 (2019)

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.

When a person believes that his or her First Amendment rights have been violated by a state government employee acting “under color of state law,” what is the citation for the federal statute that allows the person to bring a lawsuit to enforce his or her existing civil rights? 

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Answer: 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Civil action for deprivation of rights

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer's judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia.

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: When a police officer validly arrests a suspect and orders the suspect to get into the police vehicle, the suspect can temporarily pause the process by insisting on being allowed time to offer a brief prayer (consistent with the First Amendment protections for free speech and the free exercise of religion)? 

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Answer: False.  The Supreme Court addressed this situation in a 2018 decision which arose from an incident that occurred in Louisburg, Kansas.  Specifically, the Supreme Court stated:

There can be no doubt that the First Amendment protects the right to pray. Prayer unquestionably constitutes the “exercise” of religion. At the same time, there are clearly circumstances in which a police officer may lawfully prevent a person from praying at a particular time and place. For example, if an officer places a suspect under arrest and orders the suspect to enter a police vehicle for transportation to jail, the suspect does not have a right to delay that trip by insisting on first engaging in conduct that, at another time, would be protected by the First Amendment. When an officer’s order to stop praying is alleged to have occurred during the course of investigative conduct that implicates Fourth Amendment rights, the First and Fourth Amendment issues may be inextricable.

Sause v. Bauer, 138 S.Ct. 2561, 2562-63 (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.

How do you define "religious freedom"? 

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In November 2022 I ran this search in Westlaw using the following search parameters: wp("religious freedom").  Surprisingly, there were only nine hits.  The below case citation was one of the top hits. 

"The right of religious freedom embraces not only the right to worship God according to the dictates of one's conscience, but also the right ‘to do, or forbear to do, any act, for conscience sake, the doing or forbearing of which, is not prejudicial to the public weal‘."  Barnette v. W. Virginia State Bd. of Educ., 47 F. Supp. 251, 253 (S.D.W. Va. 1942) (citation omitted), aff'd, 319 U.S. 624, 63 S. Ct. 1178, 87 L. Ed. 1628 (1943)

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.

"Hallelujah!!!" Pastor John exclaimed.  It just dawned on the pastor that if a central tenet of his denomination is that the payment of taxes is wrong, then members of his church can claim a religious exemption to paying state and federal taxes thereby enabling them to better support themselves and the poor and needy.  Alas, this pastor is headed for a fast realization that his plan won't work.  Why? 

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Sorry, Pastor John.  A 1982 Supreme Court previously plowed this ground, and, assuming there is no explicit statutory exemption, one cannot escape the payment of taxes simply because it may interfere with their religious belief.  The case dealt with an appeal by a member of the Amish faith who employed various other workers.  The employer sought an exemption to paying social security taxes beyond the statutory exemption created by Congress.  The Supreme Court stated in relevant part.  

Unlike the situation presented in Wisconsin v. Yoder, supra, it would be difficult to accommodate the comprehensive social security system with myriad exceptions flowing from a wide variety of religious beliefs. The obligation to pay the social security tax initially is not fundamentally different from the obligation to pay income taxes; the difference-in theory at least-is that the social security tax revenues are segregated for use only in furtherance of the statutory program. There is no principled way, however, for purposes of this case, to distinguish between general taxes and those imposed under the Social Security Act. If, for example, a religious adherent believes war is a sin, and if a certain percentage of the federal budget can be identified as devoted to war-related activities, such individuals would have a similarly valid claim to be exempt from paying that percentage of the income tax. The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge the tax system because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief. See, e.g., Lull v. Commissioner, 602 F.2d 1166 (CA4 1979), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1014, 100 S.Ct. 664, 62 L.Ed.2d 643 (1980); Autenrieth v. Cullen, 418 F.2d 586 (CA9 1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1036, 90 S.Ct. 1353, 25 L.Ed.2d 647 (1970). Because the broad public interest in maintaining a sound tax system is of such a high order, religious belief in conflict with the payment of taxes affords no basis for resisting the tax.

United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252, 259–60, 102 S. Ct. 1051, 1056–57, 71 L. Ed. 2d 127 (1982)

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.

Religion Law Quiz #27 noted that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of baker Jack Phillips in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado C.R. Comm'n because the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had not been religiously neutral in its determination.  What were the factors that the Supreme Court cited that are relevant to the assessment of government neutrality? 

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The Supreme Court stated:

Factors relevant to the assessment of governmental neutrality include the historical background of the decision under challenge, the specific series of events leading to the enactment or official policy in question, and the legislative or administrative history, including contemporaneous statements made by members of the decisionmaking body.

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado C.R. Comm'n, 201 L. Ed. 2d 35, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 1731 (2018) (citation omitted).

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.

Religion Law Quiz #25 noted the two big issues with which the Supreme Court was faced to reconcile in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado C.R. Comm'n, but ultimately the Court did not do the reconciliation of those principles.  Why was that? 

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The reason is because the Court found that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had not been religiously neutral in its determination.  Indeed, a review of the Masterpiece decision cites various examples of commissioner hostility to baker Jack Phillips.  The majority opinion further stated:

Whatever the confluence of speech and free exercise principles might be in some cases, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's consideration of this case was inconsistent with the State's obligation of religious neutrality. The reason and motive for the baker's refusal were based on his sincere religious beliefs and convictions. The Court's precedents make clear that the baker, in his capacity as the owner of a business serving the public, might have his right to the free exercise of religion limited by generally applicable laws. Still, the delicate question of when the free exercise of his religion must yield to an otherwise valid exercise of state power needed to be determined in an adjudication in which religious hostility on the part of the State itself would not be a factor in the balance the State sought to reach. That requirement, however, was not met here. When the Colorado Civil Rights Commission considered this case, it did not do so with the religious neutrality that the Constitution requires.

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado C.R. Comm'n, 201 L. Ed. 2d 35, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 1723–24 (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 Supreme Court's 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop decision recognized "that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth."  Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado C.R. Comm'n, 201 L. Ed. 2d 35, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 1727 (2018).  The Supreme Court then reiterated legal principles related to that.  What did the Supreme Court say in that regard? 

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Here is the specific quote from the opinion:

Our society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights. The exercise of their freedom on terms equal to others must be given great weight and respect by the courts. At the same time, the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression. As this Court observed in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ––––, 135 S.Ct. 2584, 192 L.Ed.2d 609 (2015), “[t]he First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths.” Id., at ––––, 135 S.Ct., at 2607. Nevertheless, while those religious and philosophical objections are protected, it is a general rule that such objections do not allow business owners and other actors in the economy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally applicable public accommodations law. See Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc., 390 U.S. 400, 402, n. 5, 88 S.Ct. 964, 19 L.Ed.2d 1263 (1968) (per curiam ); see also Hurley v. Irish–American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U.S. 557, 572, 115 S.Ct. 2338, 132 L.Ed.2d 487 (1995) (“Provisions like these are well within the State's usual power to enact when a legislature has reason to believe that a given group is the target of discrimination, and they do not, as a general matter, violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments”).

Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado C.R. Comm'n, 201 L. Ed. 2d 35, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 1727 (2018). 

Religion Law Quiz #50 asks the basic question about what can a regular, run-of-the-mill person do to protect and defend religious freedom.   I have some specific thoughts on this very important question, and I will be addressing it in a series of periodic episodes over the next few weeks.  Today’s episode (Part 1) gives the first suggestion: Tie your actions to religion.  As increasing numbers of people in our society move away from religion it is important that people of faith (in a humble, non-condescending, matter-of-fact way) explain to others why their conduct is motivated by their belief in God.  This particular episode is a bit lengthy but it hopefully gives you a good idea of something simple, tangible, and practical that you can start doing today.  Hopefully you find this episode encouraging and insightful. 

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.