What is religious freedom?
Triggered by the best news quote of the day, and comprising my long response to it:
The school remains adamant that their decision to suspend Killian for a day has nothing to do with his religion, and quite a lot to do with his repeated refusal to heed warnings against wearing pirate outfits.
I'm a firm believer in the importance of religious freedom. But that doesn't mean "freedom to do anything in the name of religion." The important question that has not been answered is this: what activities are covered under the protection afforded religious beliefs?
Even the most draconian enforcement of anti-religious laws couldn't actually stop people from believing whatever they wanted. When Pharaoh threatened to burn to death anyone caught praying to the Hebrew god, people could still believe in the Hebrew god and pray to him in their hearts. The point of having a law protecting religion must be to protect certain, observable religious behaviors.
Does that law protect the ritual killing of children? How about assembling on private property each Sunday and singing hymns? There's a rather clear difference between the two, huh?
I think the important thing to answer is what specifically religious activities are allowed that would not be allowed under other laws? We have other laws that allow us the right to assemble. We don't need religious protection for that. If you follow that line of reasoning, you'll find that there are no activities that should be protected by 'religious freedom' that would not otherwise be legal.
So why does the Constitution have a religious freedom clause at all?
Because history has shown us many examples of activities that became illegal simply because they were religious. Praying is legal under free speech laws. The point of the religious freedom clause is to ensure that the federal government never enacts laws specifically restricting otherwise legal behavior simply because it is motivated by religion.
That's what I think. Tom Dalton, Constitutional Scholar. Oh yeah. :o)