Main Index: Cases and Codes: U.S. Constitution: First Amendment

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FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION

''The Free Exercise Clause . . . withdraws from legislative power, state and federal, the exertion of any restraint on the free exercise of religion. Its purpose is to secure religious liberty in the individual by prohibiting any invasions there by civil authority.''178 It bars ''governmental regulation of religious beliefs as such,''179 prohibiting misuse of secular governmental programs ''to impede the observance of one or all religions or . . . to discriminate invidiously between religions . . . even though the burden may be characterized as being only indirect.''180 Freedom of conscience is the basis of the free exercise clause, and government may not penalize or discriminate against an individual or a group of individuals because of their religious views nor may it compel persons to affirm any particular beliefs.181 Interpretation is complicated, however, by the fact that exercise of religion usually entails ritual or other practices that constitute ''conduct'' rather than pure ''belief.'' When it comes to protecting conduct as free exercise, the Court has been inconsistent.182 It has long been held that the Free Exercise Clause does not necessarily prevent government from requiring the doing of some act or forbidding the doing of some act merely because religious beliefs underlie the conduct in question.183 What has changed over the years is the Court's willingness to hold that some religiously motivated conduct is protected from generally applicable prohibitions.

The relationship between the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses varies with the expansiveness of interpretation of the two clauses. In a general sense both clauses proscribe governmental involvement with and interference in religious matters, but there is possible tension between a requirement of governmental neutrality derived from the Establishment Clause and a Free-Exercise-derived requirement that government accommodate some religious practices.184 So far, the Court has harmonized interpretation by denying that free- exercise-mandated accommodations create establishment violations, and also by upholding some legislative accommodations not mandated by free exercise requirements. ''This Court has long recognized that government may (and sometimes must) accommodate religious practices and that it may do so without violating the Establishment Clause.''185 In holding that a state could not deny unemployment benefits to Sabbatarians who refused Saturday work, for example, the Court denied that it was ''fostering an 'establishment' of the Seventh-Day Adventist religion, for the extension of unemployment benefits to Sabbatarians in common with Sunday worshippers reflects nothing more than the governmental obligation of neutrality in the face of religious differences, and does not represent that involvement of religious with secular institutions which it is the object of the Establishment Clause to forestall.''186 Legislation granting religious exemptions not held to have been required by the Free Exercise Clause has also been upheld against Establishment Clause challenge,187 although it is also possible for legislation to go too far in promoting free exercise.188

The Belief-Conduct Distinction.--While the Court has consistently affirmed that the Free Exercise Clause protects religious beliefs, protection for religiously motivated conduct has waxed and waned over the years. The Free Exercise Clause ''embraces two concepts-- freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the second cannot be.''189 In its first free exercise case, involving the power of government to prohibit polygamy, the Court invoked a hard distinction between the two, saying that although laws ''cannot interfere with mere religious beliefs and opinions, they may with practices.''190 The rule thus propounded protected only belief, inasmuch as religiously motivated action was to be subjected to the police power of the state to the same extent as would similar action springing from other motives. The Reynolds no-protection rule was applied in a number of cases,191 but later cases established that religiously grounded conduct is not always outside the protection of the free exercise clause.192 Instead, the Court began to balance the secular interest asserted by the government against the claim of religious liberty asserted by the person affected; only if the governmental interest was ''compelling'' and if no alternative forms of regulation would serve that interest was the claimant required to yield.193 Thus, while freedom to engage in religious practices was not absolute, it was entitled to considerable protection.

Recent cases evidence a narrowing of application of the compelling interest test, and a corresponding constriction on the freedom to engage in religiously motivated conduct. First, the Court purported to apply strict scrutiny, but upheld the governmental action anyhow. Next the Court held that the test is inappropriate in the contexts of military and prison discipline.194 Then, more importantly, the Court ruled in Employment Division v. Smith that ''if prohibiting the exercise of religion . . . is not the object . . . but merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision, the First Amendment has not been offended.''195 Therefore, the Court concluded, the Free Exercise Clause does not prohibit a state from applying generally applicable criminal penalties to use of peyote in a religious ceremony, or from denying unemployment benefits to persons dismissed from their jobs because of religious ceremonial use of peyote. Accommodation of such religious practices must be found in ''the political process,'' the Court noted; statutory religious-practice exceptions are permissible, but not ''constitutionally required.''196 The result is tantamount to a return to the Reynolds belief-conduct distinction.

The Mormon Cases.--The Court's first encounter with free exercise claims occurred in a series of cases in which the Federal Government and the territories moved against the Mormons because of their practice of polygamy. Actual prosecutions and convictions for bigamy presented little problem for the Court, inasmuch as it could distinguish between beliefs and acts.197 But the presence of large numbers of Mormons in some of the territories made convictions for bigamy difficult to obtain, and in 1882 Congress enacted a statute which barred ''bigamists,'' ''polygamists,'' and ''any person cohabiting with more than one woman'' from voting or serving on juries. The Court sustained the law, even as applied to persons entering the state prior to enactment of the original law prohibiting bigamy and to persons as to whom the statute of limitations had run.198 Subsequently, an act of a territorial legislature which required a prospective voter not only to swear that he was not a bigamist or polygamist but as well that ''I am not a member of any order, organization or association which teaches, advises, counsels or encourages its members, devotees or any other person to commit the crime of bigamy or polygamy . . . or which practices bigamy, polygamy or plural or celestial marriage as a doctrinal rite of such organization; that I do not and will not, publicly or privately, or in any manner whatever teach, advise, counsel or encourage any person to commit the crime of bigamy or polygamy . . . ,'' was upheld in an opinion that condemned plural marriage and its advocacy as equal evils.199 And, finally, the Court sustained the revocation of the charter of the Mormon Church and confiscation of all church property not actually used for religious worship or for burial.200

The Jehovah's Witnesses Cases.--In contrast to the Mormons, the sect known as Jehovah's Witnesses, in many ways as unsettling to the conventional as the Mormons were,201 provoked from the Court a lengthy series of decisions202 expanding the rights of religious proselytizers and other advocates to utilize the streets and parks to broadcast their ideas, though the decisions may be based more squarely on the speech clause than on the free exercise clause. The leading case is Cantwell v. Connecticut.203 Three Jehovah's Witnesses were convicted under a statute which forbade the unlicensed soliciting of funds for religious or charitable purposes, and also under a general charge of breach of the peace. The solicitation count was voided as an infringement on religion because the issuing officer was authorized to inquire whether the applicant did have a religious cause and to decline a license if in his view the cause was not religious. Such power amounted to a previous restraint upon the exercise of religion and was invalid, the Court held.204 The breach of the peace count arose when the three accosted two Catholics in a strongly Catholic neighborhood and played them a phonograph record which grossly insulted the Christian religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular. The Court voided this count under the clear-and-present danger test, finding that the interest sought to be upheld by the State did not justify the suppression of religious views that simply annoyed listeners.205

There followed a series of sometimes conflicting decisions. At first, the Court sustained the application of a non-discriminatory li cense fee to vendors of religious books and pamphlets,206 but eleven months later it vacated its former decision and struck down such fees.207 A city ordinance making it unlawful for anyone distributing literature to ring a doorbell or otherwise summon the dwellers of a residence to the door to receive such literature was held in violation of the First Amendment when applied to distributors of leaflets advertising a religious meeting.208 But a state child labor law was held to be validly applied to punish the guardian of a nine-year old child who permitted her to engage in ''preaching work'' and the sale of religious publications after hours.209 The Court decided a number of cases involving meetings and rallies in public parks and other public places by upholding licensing and permit requirements which were premised on nondiscriminatory ''times, places, and manners'' terms and which did not seek to regulate the content of the religious message to be communicated.210

Free Exercise Exemption From General Governmental Requirements.--As described above, the Court gradually abandoned its strict belief-conduct distinction, and developed a balancing test to determine when a uniform, nondiscriminatory requirement by government mandating action or nonaction by citizens must allow exceptions for citizens whose religious scruples forbid compliance. Then, in 1990, the Court reversed direction in Employment Division v. Smith,211 confining application of the ''compelling interest'' test to a narrow category of cases.

In early cases the Court sustained the power of a State to exclude from its schools children who because of their religious beliefs would not participate in the salute to the flag,212 only within a short time to reverse itself and condemn such exclusions, but on speech grounds rather than religious grounds.213 Also, the Court seemed to be clearly of the view that government could compel those persons religiously opposed to bearing arms to take an oath to do so or to receive training to do so,214 only in later cases by its statutory resolution to cast doubt on this resolution,215 and still more recently to leave the whole matter in some doubt.216

Braunfeld v. Brown217 held that the free exercise clause did not mandate an exemption from Sunday Closing Laws for an Orthodox Jewish merchant who observed Saturday as the Sabbath and was thereby required to be closed two days of the week rather than one. This requirement did not prohibit any religious practices, the Court's plurality pointed out, but merely regulated secular activity in a manner making religious exercise more expensive.218 ''If the State regulates conduct by enacting a general law within its power, the purpose and effect of which is to advance the State's secular goals, the statute is valid despite its indirect burden on religious observance unless the State may accomplish its purpose by means which do not impose such a burden.''219

Within two years the Court in Sherbert v. Verner220 extended the line of analysis to require a religious exemption from a secular, regulatory piece of economic legislation. Sherbert was disqualified from receiving unemployment compensation because, as a Seventh Day Adventist, she would not accept Saturday work; according to state officials, this meant she was not complying with the statutory requirement to stand ready to accept suitable employment. This denial of benefits could be upheld, the Court said, only if ''her disqualification as a beneficiary represents no infringement by the State of her constitutional rights of free exercise, or [if] any incidental burden on the free exercise of appellant's religions may be justified by a 'compelling state interest in the regulation of a subject within the State's constitutional power to regulate . . .'''221 First, the disqualification was held to impose a burden on the free exercise of Sherbert's religion; it was an indirect burden and it did not impose a criminal sanction on a religious practice, but the disqualification derived solely from her practice of her religion and constituted a compulsion upon her to forgo that practice.222 Second, there was no compelling interest demonstrated by the State. The only interest asserted was the prevention of the possibility of fraudulent claims, but that was merely a bare assertion. Even if there was a showing of demonstrable danger, ''it would plainly be incumbent upon the appellees to demonstrate that no alternative forms of regulation would combat such abuses without infringing First Amendment rights.''223

Sherbert was reaffirmed and applied in subsequent cases involving denial of unemployment benefits. Thomas v. Review Board224 involved a Jehovah's Witness who quit his job when his employer transferred him from a department making items for industrial use to a department making parts for military equipment. While his belief that his religion proscribed work on war materials was not shared by all other Jehovah's Witnesses, the Court held that it was inappropriate to inquire into the validity of beliefs asserted to be religious so long as the claims were made in good faith (and the beliefs were at least arguably religious). The same result was reached in a 1987 case, the fact that the employee's religious conversion rather than a job reassignment had created the conflict between work and Sabbath observance not being considered mate rial to the determination that free exercise rights had been burdened by the denial of unemployment compensation.225 Also, a state may not deny unemployment benefits solely because refusal to work on the Sabbath was based on sincere religious beliefs held independently of membership in any established religious church or sect.226

The Court applied the Sherbert balancing test in several areas outside of unemployment compensation. The first two such cases involved the Amish, whose religion requires them to lead a simple life of labor and worship in a tight-knit and self-reliant community largely insulated from the materialism and other distractions of modern life. Wisconsin v. Yoder227 held that a state compulsory attendance law, as applied to require Amish children to attend ninth and tenth grades of public schools in contravention of Amish religious beliefs, violated the Free Exercise Clause. The Court first determined that the beliefs of the Amish were indeed religiously based and of great antiquity.228 Next, the Court rejected the State's arguments that the Free Exercise Clause extends no protection because the case involved ''action'' or ''conduct'' rather than belief, and because the regulation, neutral on its face, did not single out religion.229 Instead, the Court went on to analyze whether a ''compelling'' governmental interest required such ''grave interference'' with Amish belief and practices.230 The governmental interest was not the general provision of education, inasmuch as the State and the Amish were in agreement on education through the first eight grades and since the Amish provided their children with additional education of a primarily vocational nature. The State's interest was really that of providing two additional years of public schooling. Nothing in the record, felt the Court, showed that this interest outweighed the great harm which it would do to traditional Amish religious beliefs to impose the compulsory ninth and tenth grade attendance.231

But in recent years the Court's decisions evidenced increasing discontent with the compelling interest test. In several cases the Court purported to apply strict scrutiny but nonetheless upheld the governmental action in question. In United States v. Lee,232 for example, the Court denied the Amish exemption from compulsory participation in the Social Security system. The objection was that payment of taxes by Amish employers and employees and the receipt of public financial assistance were forbidden by their religious beliefs. Accepting that this was true, the Court nonetheless held that the governmental interest was compelling and therefore sufficient to justify the burdening of religious beliefs.233 Compulsory payment of taxes was necessary for the vitality of the system; either voluntary participation or a pattern of exceptions would undermine its soundness and make the program difficult to administer.

''A compelling governmental interest'' was also found to outweigh free exercise interests in Bob Jones University v. United States,234 in which the Court upheld the I.R.S.'s denial of tax exemptions to church-run colleges whose racially discriminatory admissions policies derived from religious beliefs. The Federal Government's ''fundamental, overriding interest in eradicating racial discrimination in education''--found to be encompassed in common law standards of ''charity'' underlying conferral of the tax exemption on ''charitable'' institutions--''substantially outweighs'' the burden on free exercise. Nor could the schools' free exercise interests be accommodated by less restrictive means.235

In other cases the Court found reasons not to apply compelling interest analysis. Religiously motivated speech, like other speech, can be subjected to reasonable time, place, or manner regulation serving a ''substantial'' rather than ''compelling'' governmental interest.236 Sherbert's threshold test, inquiring ''whether government has placed a substantial burden on the observation of a central religious belief or practice,''237 eliminates other issues. As long as a particular religion does not proscribe the payment of taxes (as was the case with the Amish in Lee), the Court has denied that there

is any constitutionally significant burden resulting from ''imposition of a generally applicable tax [that] merely decreases the amount of money [adherents] have to spend on [their] religious activities.''238 The one caveat the Court left--that a generally applicable tax might be so onerous as to ''effectively choke off an adherent's religious practices''239 --may be a moot point in light of the Court's general ruling in Employment Division v. Smith, discussed below.

The Court also drew a distinction between governmental regulation of individual conduct, on the one hand, and restraint of governmental conduct as a result of individuals' religious beliefs, on the other. Sherbert's compelling interest test has been held inapplicable in cases viewed as involving attempts by individuals to alter governmental actions rather than attempts by government to restrict religious practices. Emphasizing the absence of coercion on religious adherents, the Court in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass'n240 held that the Forest Service, even absent a compelling justification, could construct a road through a portion of a national forest held sacred and used by Indians in religious observances. The Court distinguished between governmental actions having the indirect effect of frustrating religious practices and those actually prohibiting religious belief or conduct: '''the Free Exercise Clause is written in terms of what the government cannot do to the individual, not in terms of what the individual can exact from the government.'''241 Similarly, even a sincerely held religious belief that assignment of a social security number would rob a child of her soul was held insufficient to bar the government from using the number for purposes of its own recordkeeping.242 It mattered not how easily the government could accommodate the religious beliefs or practices (an exemption from the social security number requirement might have been granted with only slight impact on the government's recordkeeping capabilities), since the na ture of the governmental actions did not implicate free exercise protections.243

Compelling interest analysis is also wholly inapplicable in the context of military rules and regulations, where First Amendment review ''is far more deferential than . . . review of similar laws or regulations designed for civilian society.''244 Thus the Court did not question the decision of military authorities to apply uniform dress code standards to prohibit the wearing of a yarmulke by an officer compelled by his Orthodox Jewish religious beliefs to wear the yarmulke.245

A high degree of deference is also due decisions of prison administrators having the effect of restricting religious exercise by inmates. The general rule is that prison regulations impinging on exercise of constitutional rights by inmates are '''valid if . . . reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.'''246 Thus because general prison rules requiring a particular category of inmates to work outside of buildings where religious services were held, and prohibiting return to the buildings during the work day, could be viewed as reasonably related to legitimate penological concerns of security and order, no exemption was required to permit Muslim inmates to participate in Jumu'ah, the core ceremony of their religion.247 The fact that the inmates were left with no alternative means of attending Jumu'ah was not dispositive, the Court being ''unwilling to hold that prison officials are required by the Constitution to sacrifice legitimate penological objectives to that end.''248

Finally, in Employment Division v. Smith249 the Court indicated that the compelling interest test may apply only in the field of unemployment compensation, and in any event does not apply to require exemptions from generally applicable criminal laws. Criminal laws are ''generally applicable'' when they apply across the board regardless of the religious motivation of the prohibited conduct, and are ''not specifically directed at . . . religious practices.''250 The unemployment compensation statute at issue in Sherbert was peculiarly suited to application of a balancing test because denial of benefits required a finding that an applicant had refused work ''without good cause.'' Sherbert and other unemployment compensation cases thus ''stand for the proposition that where the State has in place a system of individual exemptions, it may not refuse to extend that system to cases of 'religious hardship' without compelling reason.''251 Wisconsin v. Yoder and other decisions holding ''that the First Amendment bars application of a neutral, generally applicable law to religiously motivated action'' were distinguished as involving ''not the Free Exercise Clause alone, but the Free Exercise Clause in conjunction with other constitutional protections'' such as free speech or ''parental rights.''252 Except in the relatively uncommon circumstance when a statute calls for individualized consideration, then, the Free Exercise Clause affords no basis for exemption from a ''neutral, generally applicable law.'' As the Court concluded in Smith, accommodation for religious practices incompatible with general requirements must ordinarily be found in ''the political process.''253

The ramifications of Smith are potentially widespread. The Court has apparently returned to a belief-conduct dichotomy under which religiously motivated conduct is not entitled to special protection. Laws may not single out religiously motivated conduct for adverse treatment, but formally neutral laws of general applicability may regulate religious conduct (along with other conduct) regardless of the adverse or prohibitory effects on religious exercise. Similar rules govern taxation. Under the Court's rulings in Smith and Swaggart, religious exemptions from most taxes are a matter of legislative grace rather than constitutional command, since most important taxes (e.g., income, property, sales and use) satisfy the criteria of formal neutrality and general applicability, and are not license fees that can be viewed as prior restraints on expression.254 The result is equal protection, but not substantive protection, for religious exercise.255 The Court's approach also accords less protection to religiously-based conduct than is accorded expressive conduct that implicates speech but not religious values.256 On the practical side, relegation of free exercise claims to the political process may, as concurring Justice O'Connor warned, result in less protection for small, unpopular religious sects.257

Religious Test Oaths.--However the Court has been divided in dealing with religiously-based conduct and governmental compulsion of action or nonaction, it was unanimous in voiding a state constitutional provision which required a notary public, as a condition of perfecting his appointment, to declare his belief in the existence of יתןת. The First Amendment, considered with the religious oath provision of Article VI, makes it impossible ''for government, state or federal, to restore the historically and constitutionally discredited policy of probing religious beliefs by test oaths or limiting public offices to persons who have, or perhaps more properly, profess to have, a belief in some particular kind of religious concept.''258

Religious Disqualification.--Unanimously, but with great differences of approach, the Court declared invalid a Tennessee statute barring ministers and priests from service in a specially called state constitutional convention.259 The Court's decision necessarily implied that the constitutional provision on which the statute was based, barring ministers and priests from service as state legislators, was also invalid.

Footnotes

[Footnote 178] Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 222-23 (1963).

[Footnote 179] Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S 398, 402 (1963) (emphasis in original).

[Footnote 180] Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 607 (1961).

[Footnote 181] Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 402 (1963); Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961).

[Footnote 182] Academics as well as the Justices grapple with the extent to which religious practices as well as beliefs are protected by the Free Exercise Clause. For contrasting academic views of the origins and purposes of the Free Exercise Clause, compare McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion, 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1410 (1990) (concluding that constitutionally compelled exemptions from generally applicable laws are consistent with the Clause's origins in religious pluralism) with Marshall, The Case Against the Constitutionally Compelled Free Exercise Exemption, 40 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 357 (1989-90) (arguing that such exemptions establish an invalid preference for religious beliefs over non-religious beliefs).

[Footnote 183] E.g., Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879); Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905); Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599 (1961); United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252 (1982); Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990).

[Footnote 184] ''The Court has struggled to find a neutral course between the two Religion Clauses, both of which are cast in absolute terms, and either of which, if expanded to a logical extreme, would tend to clash with the other.'' Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 668-69 (1970).

[Footnote 185] Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n, 480 U.S. 136, 144-45 (1987). A similar accommodative approach was suggested in Walz: ''there is room for play in the joints productive of a benevolent neutrality which will permit religious exercise to exist without [governmental] sponsorship and without interference.'' 397 U.S. at 669.

[Footnote 186] Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 409 (1963). Accord, Thomas v. Review Bd., 450 U.S. 707, 719-20 (1981). Dissenting in Thomas, Justice Rehnquist argued that Sherbert and Thomas created unacceptable tensions between the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses, and that requiring the States to accommodate persons like Sherbert and Thomas because of their religious beliefs ran the risk of ''establishing'' religion under the Court's existing tests. He argued further, however, that less expansive interpretations of both clauses would eliminate this artificial tension. Thus, Justice Rehnquist would have interpreted the Free Exercise Clause as not requiring government to grant exemptions from general requirements that may burden religious exercise but that do not prohibit religious practices outright, and would have interpreted the Establishment Clause as not preventing government from voluntarily granting religious exemptions. 450 U.S. at 720-27. By 1990 these views had apparently gained ascendancy, Justice Scalia's opinion for the Court in the ''peyote'' case suggesting that accommodation should be left to the political process, i.e., that states could constitutionally provide exceptions in their drug laws for sacramental peyote use, even though such exceptions are not constitutionally required. Employment Div. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 890 (1990).

[Footnote 187] See, e.g., Walz v. Tax Comm'n, 397 U.S. 664 (upholding property tax exemption for religious organizations); Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987) (upholding Civil Rights Act exemption allowing religious institutions to restrict hiring to members of religion); Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437, 453-54 (1971) (interpreting conscientious objection exemption from military service).

[Footnote 188] See, e.g., Committee for Pub. Educ. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 788-89 (1973) (tuition reimbursement grants to parents of parochial school children violate Establishment Clause in spite of New York State's argument that program was designed to promote free exercise by enabling low-income parents to send children to church schools); Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U.S. 1 (1989) (state sales tax exemption for religious publications violates the Establishment Clause) (plurality opinion).

[Footnote 189] Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 304 (1940).

[Footnote 190] Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 166 (1878). ''Crime is not the less odious because sanctioned by what any particular sect may designate as 'religion.''' Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333, 345 (1890). In another context, Justice Sutherland in United States v. Macintosh, 283 U.S. 605, 625 (1931), suggested a plenary governmental power to regulate action in denying that recognition of conscientious objection to military service was of a constitutional magnitude, saying that ''unqualified allegiance to the Nation and submission and obedience to the laws of the land, as well those made for war as those made for peace, are not inconsistent with the will of יתןת.''

[Footnote 191] Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) (compulsory vaccination); Prince v. Massachusetts 321 U.S. 158 (1944) (child labor); Cleveland v. United States, 329 U.S. 14 (1946) (polygamy). In Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 403 (1963), Justice Brennan asserted that the ''conduct or activities so regulated [in the cited cases] have invariably posed some substantial threat to public safety, peace or order.''

[Footnote 192] Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963); Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972); cf. Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. 599, 607 (1961): ''[I]f the State regulates conduct by enacting a general law within its power, the purpose and effect of which is to advance the State's secular goals, the statute is valid despite its indirect burden on religious observance unless the State may accomplish its purpose by means which do not impose such a burden.''

[Footnote 193] Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 403, 406-09 (1963). In Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), the Court recognized compelling state interests in provision of public education, but found insufficient evidence that those interests (preparing children for citizenship and for self-reliance) would be furthered by requiring Amish children to attend public schools beyond the eighth grade. Instead, the evidence showed that the Amish system of vocational education prepared their children for life in their self-sufficient communities.

[Footnote 194] Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503 (1986); O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342 (1987).

[Footnote 195] 494 U.S. 872, 878 (1990).

[Footnote 196] Id. at 890.

[Footnote 197] Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879); cf. Cleveland v. United States, 329 U.S. 14 (1946) (no religious-belief defense to Mann Act prosecution for transporting a woman across state line for the ''immoral purpose'' of polygamy).

[Footnote 198] Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 15 (1885).

[Footnote 199] Davis v. Beason, 133 U.S. 333 (1890). ''Bigamy and polygamy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and Christian countries. . . . To call their advocacy a tenet of religion is to offend the common sense of mankind. If they are crimes, then to teach, advise and counsel their practice is to aid in their commission, and such teaching and counseling are themselves criminal and proper subjects of punishment, as aiding and abetting crime are in all other cases.'' Id. at 341-42.

[Footnote 200] The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States, 136 U.S. 1 (1890). ''[T]he property of the said corporation . . . [is to be used to promote] the practice of polygamy--a crime against the laws, and abhorrent to the sentiments and feelings of the civilized world. . . . The organization of a community for the spread and practice of polygamy is, in a measure, a return to barbarism. It is contrary to the spirit of Christianity and of the civilization which Christianity had produced in the Western world.'' Id. at 48-49.

[Footnote 201] For recent cases dealing with other religious groups discomfiting to the mainstream, see Heffron v. ISKCON, 452 U.S. 640 (1981) (Hare Krishnas); Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228 (1982) (Unification Church).

[Footnote 202] Most of the cases are collected and categorized by Justice Frankfurter in Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U.S. 268, 273 (1951) (concurring opinion).

[Footnote 203] 310 U.S. 296 (1940).

[Footnote 204] Id. at 303-07. ''The freedom to act must have appropriate definition to preserve the enforcement of that protection [of society]. In every case the power to regulate must be so exercised as not, in attaining a permissible end, unduly to infringe the protected freedom. . . . [A] State may by general and non-discriminatory legislation regulate the times, the places, and the manner of soliciting upon its streets, and of holding meetings thereon; and may in other respects safeguard the peace, good order and comfort of the community, without unconstitutionally invading the liberties protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.'' Id. at 304.

[Footnote 205] Id. at 307-11. ''In the realm of religious faith, and in that of political belief, sharp differences arise. In both fields the tenets of one man may seem the rankest error to his neighbor. To persuade others to his own point of view, the pleader, as we know, at times, resorts to exaggeration, to vilification of men who have been, or are, prominent in church or state, and even to false statement. But the people of this nation have ordained in the light of history, that, in spite of the probabilities of excesses and abuses, these liberties are in the long view, essential to enlightened opinion and right conduct on the part of the citizens of a democracy.'' Id. at 310.

[Footnote 206] Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 584 (1942).

[Footnote 207] Jones v. Opelika, 319 U.S. 103 (1943); Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 (1943). See also Follett v. McCormick, 321 U.S. 573 (1944) (invalidating a flat licensing fee for booksellers). Murdock and Follett were distinguished in Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. California Bd. of Equalization, 493 U.S. 378, 389 (1990) as applying ''only where a flat license fee operates as a prior restraint''; upheld in Swaggart was application of a general sales and use tax to sales of religious publications.

[Footnote 208] Martin v. City of Struthers, 319 U.S. 141 (1943). But cf. Breard v. City of Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622 (1951) (similar ordinance sustained in commercial solicitation context).

[Footnote 209] Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944).

[Footnote 210] E.g., Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U.S. 268 (1951); Kunz v. New York, 340 U.S. 290 (1951); Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U.S. 67 (1953); Poulos v. New Hampshire, 345 U.S. 395 (1953). See also Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228 (1982) (solicitation on state fair ground by Unification Church members).

[Footnote 211] 494 U.S. 872 (1990).

[Footnote 212] Minersville School Dist. v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586 (1940).

[Footnote 213] West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). On the same day, the Court held that a State may not forbid the distribution of literature urging and advising on religious grounds that citizens refrain from saluting the flag. Taylor v. Mississippi, 319 U.S. 583 (1943).

[Footnote 214] See United States v. Schwimmer, 279 U.S. 644 (1929); United States v. Macintosh, 283 U.S. 605 (1931); and United States v. Bland, 283 U.S. 636 (1931) (all interpreting the naturalization law as denying citizenship to a conscientious objector who would not swear to bear arms in defense of the country), all three of which were overruled by Girouard v. United States, 328 U.S. 61 (1946), on strictly statutory grounds. See also Hamilton v. Board of Regents, 293 U.S. 245 (1934) (upholding expulsion from state university for a religiously based refusal to take a required course in military training); In re Summers, 325 U.S. 561 (1945) (upholding refusal to admit applicant to bar because as conscientious objector he could not take required oath).

[Footnote 215] United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965); see id. at 188 (Justice Douglas concurring); Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333 (1970); and see id. at 344 (Justice Harlan concurring).

[Footnote 216] Gillette v. United States, 401 U.S. 437 (1971) (holding that secular considerations overbalanced free exercise infringement of religious beliefs of objectors to particular wars).

[Footnote 217] 366 U.S. 599 (1961). On Sunday Closing Laws and the establishment clause, see supra, pp. 987-988.

[Footnote 218] 366 U.S. at 605-06.

[Footnote 219] Id. at 607 (plurality opinion). The concurrence balanced the economic disadvantage suffered by the Sabbatarians against the important interest of the State in securing its day of rest regulation. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. at 512-22 (1961). Three Justices dissented. Id. at 561 (Justice Douglas); Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U.S. at 610 (Justice Brennan), 616 (Justice Stewart).

[Footnote 220] 374 U.S. 398 (1963).

[Footnote 221] Id. at 403, quoting NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 438 (1963).

[Footnote 222] Id. at 403-06.

[Footnote 223] Id. at 407. Braunfeld was distinguished because of ''a countervailing factor which finds no equivalent in the instant case--a strong state interest in providing one uniform day of rest for all workers.'' That secular objective could be achieved, the Court found, only by declaring Sunday to be that day of rest. Requiring exemptions for Sabbatarians, while theoretically possible, appeared to present an administrative problem of such magnitude, or to afford the exempted class so great a competitive advantage, that such a requirement would have rendered the entire statutory scheme unworkable. Id. at 408-09. Other Justices thought that Sherbert overruled Braunfeld. Id. at 413, 417 (Justice Stewart concurring), 418 (Justice Harlan and White dissenting).

[Footnote 224] 450 U.S. 707 (1981).

[Footnote 225] Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm'n, 480 U.S. 136 (1987).

[Footnote 226] Frazee v. Illinois Dep't of Employment Security, 489 U.S. 829 (1989). Cf. United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965) (interpreting the religious objection exemption from military service as encompassing a broad range of formal and personal religious beliefs).

[Footnote 227] 406 U.S. 205 (1972).

[Footnote 228] Id. at 215-19. Why the Court felt impelled to make these points is unclear, since it is settled that it is improper for courts to inquire into the interpretation of religious belief. E.g., United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252, 257 (1982).

[Footnote 229] Id. at 219-21.

[Footnote 230] Id. at 221.

[Footnote 231] Id. at 221-29.

[Footnote 232] 455 U.S. 252 (1982).

[Footnote 233] The Court's formulation was whether the limitation on religious exercise was ''essential to accomplish an overriding governmental interest.'' 455 U.S. at 257-58. Accord, Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680, 699-700 (1989) (any burden on free exercise imposed by disallowance of a tax deduction was ''justified by the 'broad public interest in maintaining a sound tax system' free of 'myriad exceptions flowing from a wide variety of religious beliefs''').

[Footnote 234] 461 U.S. 574 (1983).

[Footnote 235] 461 U.S. at 604.

[Footnote 236] Heffron v. ISKCON, 452 U.S. 640 (1981). Requiring Krishnas to solicit at fixed booth sites on county fair grounds is a valid time, place, and manner regulation, although, as the Court acknowledged, id. at 652, peripatetic solicitation was an element of Krishna religious rites.

[Footnote 237] As restated in Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680, 699 (1989).

[Footnote 238] Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. California Bd. of Equalization, 493 U.S. 378, 391 (1990). See also Tony and Susan Alamo Found. v. Secretary of Labor, 471 U.S. 290 (1985) (the Court failing to perceive how application of minimum wage and overtime requirements would burden free exercise rights of employees of a religious foundation, there being no assertion that the amount of compensation was a matter of religious import); and Hernandez v. Commissioner, 490 U.S. 680 (1989) (questioning but not deciding whether any burden was imposed by administrative disallowal of deduction for payments deemed to be for commercial rather than religious or charitable purposes).

[Footnote 239] Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, 493 U.S. at 392.

[Footnote 240] 485 U.S. 439 (1988).

[Footnote 241] Id. at 451, quoting Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 412 (1963) (Douglas, J., concurring).

[Footnote 242] Bowen v. Roy, 476 U.S. 693 (1986).

[Footnote 243] ''In neither case . . . would the affected individuals be coerced by the Government's action into violating their religious beliefs; nor would either governmental action penalize religious activity.'' Lyng, 485 U.S. at 449.

[Footnote 244] Goldman v. Weinberger, 475 U.S. 503, 507 (1986).

[Footnote 245] Congress reacted swiftly by enacting a provision allowing military personnel to wear religious apparel while in uniform, subject to exceptions to be made by the Secretary of the relevant military department for circumstances in which the apparel would interfere with performance of military duties or would not be ''neat and conservative.'' Pub. L. 100-180, Sec. 508(a)(2), 101 Stat. 1086 (1987); 10 U.S.C. Sec. 774.

[Footnote 246] O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342, 349 (1987) (quoting Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89 (1987)).

[Footnote 247] O'Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342 (1987).

[Footnote 248] Id. at 351-52 (also suggesting that the ability of the inmates to engage in other activities required by their faith, e.g. individual prayer and observance of Ramadan, rendered the restriction reasonable).

[Footnote 249] 494 U.S. 872 (1990) (holding that state may apply criminal penalties to use of peyote in a religious ceremony, and may deny unemployment benefits to persons dismissed from their jobs because of religiously inspired use of peyote).

[Footnote 250] Id. at 878.

[Footnote 251] Id. at 884.

[Footnote 252] Id. at 881.

[Footnote 253] Id. at 890.

[Footnote 254] This latter condition derives from the fact that the Court in Swaggart distinguished earlier decisions by characterizing them as applying only to flat license fees. See n., supra. See also Laycock, The Remnants of Free Exercise, 1990 Sup. Ct. Rev. 1, 39-41.

[Footnote 255] Justice O'Connor, concurring in Smith, argued that ''the Free Exercise Clause protects values distinct from those protected by the Equal Protection Clause.'' 494 U.S. at 901.

[Footnote 256] Although neutral laws affecting expressive conduct are not measured by a ''compelling interest'' test, they are ''subject to a balancing, rather than categorical, approach.'' Smith, 494 U.S. at 902 (O'Connor, J., concurring).

[Footnote 257] Id. at 1613.

[Footnote 258] Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488, 494 (1961).

[Footnote 259] McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U.S. 618 (1978). The plurality opinion by Chief Justice Burger, joined by Justices Powell, Rehnquist, and Stevens, found the case governed by Sherbert v. Verner's strict scrutiny test. The State had failed to show that its view of the dangers of clergy participation in the political process had any validity; Torcaso v. Watkins was distinguished because the State was acting on the status of being a clergyman rather than on one's beliefs. Justice Brennan, joined by Justice Marshall, found Torcaso controlling because imposing a restriction upon one's status as a religious person did penalize his religious belief, his freedom to profess or practice that belief. Id. at 629. Justice Stewart also found Torcaso dispositive, id. at 642, and Justice White found an equal protection violation because of the restraint upon seeking political office. Id. at 643.