Should Religious Freedom protect ALL religious practices?

[Holly3278]

Hey everyone. I just came across an interesting question regarding religious freedom. Should religious freedom be used to protect all religious practices of all religions? For example if a religion teaches that women are inferior to men should religious freedom protect their religious practices as well? I guess one example would be the Jehovah’s witnesses and blood transfusions. Should their religious practices be protected by religious freedom as well? This person online was basically saying that if religious freedom should protect a business has right to refuse service to people such as gay weddings and such then shouldn’t all religious practices be protected. I’m not sure how to respond to this. Please help.

 

[meltzerboy2]

It’s tricky; but, in general, I would say yes, even in the case of JW’s and blood transfusions or Christian Scientists and prayer in place of medicine. If one starts making exceptions, where does it end? An example is the recent case involving the Seal of Confession being broken so that the priest can identify (by voice at least) a penitent who confesses to being a child molester. OTOH, a religion that practices (unwilling) human or animal sacrifice should not be protected since this is a clear and present danger to human or animal life. But even here, it’s a slippery slope.

 

[Prodigal1984]

I would say yes . Except for “religions” who only exist as a satire to existing religions.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

We have bodies of civil law already on subjects like refusing medical treatment on religious grounds.

The law tends to look at the specific practice and its impact on people and society and decide whether to permit it or not. It’s quite a reasonable approach. The law will never say “ALL religious practices permitted” as for all we know that could include human sacrifice or burning down your neighbor’s house.

The law in USA has legal tests for specific cases and “makes exceptions” all over the place.

Tell whoever you are talking to that he should educate himself on the law and how it works and get back to you.

 

[phil19034]

I’m going to take the position of the Catholic Church until Vatican II on this one:

Religious Freedom should only protect the Catholic Church anyone we can tolerate.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

You could just use the arbitrary it doesn’t harm anyone. It might need some nuances later one to make it consistent, but that’s how it works.

 

[Pattylt]

I feel rather strongly that there are situations where a religious freedom can be overridden for the protection of individuals within and outside the religion. I have no problem if an adult JW refuses a transfusion but I do have a problem when they decide it for their children.

I think the law has to tread very carefully and I understand that slippery slopes will come up. One area that I struggle over is a pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription due to conflict with their faith as long as another pharmacist is available to step in. If not then I think it should be mandatory that they fill it.

If a public facing business doesn’t want to serve gay customers, can another public facing company not serve Jews or blacks? It’s complicated and I sure don’t have good answers and I’m glad to let the lawyers figure it out!

 

[snarflemike]

Religious Freedom works when people are (were) “reasonable”. When not, it doesn’t. It’s looking like we’re now going to have to start accommodating Satanism now, for example. And female genital mutilation, are we going to allow that?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If a public facing business doesn’t want to serve gay customers, can another public facing company not serve Jews or blacks? It’s complicated and I sure don’t have good answers and I’m glad to let the lawyers figure it out!

The law does not permit a business to discriminate generally against any class of people. The cake baker who went to the Supreme Court was not discriminating in this general way, because he told the gay couple they could have any standard cake from his shop, he just was not going to personally create a custom cake for them.

By the same reasoning, the cake baker could refuse to make a custom Jewish cake or a custom Muslim cake or any other kind of custom cake he would need to design himself. But he could not refuse to sell a standard general-purchase item to a Jewish or a Muslim person because they were Jewish or Muslim.

I am not aware of any business out there that refuses to sell a general item to people because they are gay. Even Chick-fil-A will happily sell gay couples chicken sandwiches. The issue arises when the item is something that has to be custom created. If we require the cake baker to custom-make a cake that goes against his beliefs, then the law would also have to require an African-American custom cake baker to create a custom cake for a KKK rally, or a gay cake baker to create a custom cake for a fundamentalist anti-gay event.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

One real-life area where I see this come up is vaccinations.
At this time in the US, nearly every state allows for exemption from mandatory vaccination of schoolchildren in religious or philosophical grounds. I think California may be the one exception.
And now, we’re seeing upticks in measles and whooping cough cases in recent years.
And there’s starting to be push-back from people who don’t believe in religious exemptions and conscience protections.

This is where I get uneasy.

All the old, established religions allow for vaccinations. It’s only the newer ones who voice objections.
So it’s reasonable to start asking questions about how valid these objections are.

Maybe I’m taking a massive leap here, but I do wonder if someday our religious freedoms could be curtailed with an argument like this: “Well, we let you religious types have your own way about vaccines, and look what happened. Obviously religion can’t be trusted for the common good.”

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Unless a society had become anti-religious in general (example: Communism as practiced in the Soviet Union), why would the state want to punish all religions, including the many that permit vaccination, simply because a few religions did not permit vaccination? That makes no sense.

 

[Hodos]

No, the First Amendment should not be used to protect all religious practices. Some practices would inevitably infringe upon another’s inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and protection of property. These would be externalities to the individual that the government has a legitimate role in regulating. So for example, human sacrifice or child sacrifice is indefensible as a practice because it would impose an externality upon another person and deprive them of life apart from due process of law. That being said, the First Amendment was enacted to protect individuals from government interference, not to prevent the individual expression of religious values in the public square. So the establishment clause prevents the government from establishing an official state religion that it would compel individual citizens to obey; simultaneously, it prevents the government from infringing upon the free exercise of religious values in the public square. If we hold to the original intention of the First Amendment, then a business should have the right to refuse service for events that it deems to be objectionable. Unfortunately, the 14th Amendment has been coupled with the regulation of interstate commerce in a way that far exceeds the meaning of the laws and the original intention of those two clauses. Essentially, many rulings of the Supreme Court throughout the years have essentially read into the law whatever the majority opinion felt like reading into it, instead of reading the law as it was initially written and putting the onus on the legislative branch to change the Constitution. That being said, even with the illegitimate reading of case law in the past, a small business owner, while not having the right to refuse business for the purpose of not serving a particular class of individual based on race, sex, age, religious affiliation, etc., should still have the right to refuse service based on the type of service being requested. If I am cabinet maker and someone asks me because I have a background in carpentry or a related to field to do the framing of a house, I should be able to refuse because I object to providing my labor for that purpose. Same thing with designing cakes or floral arrangements for a purpose to which I am morally opposed. The government does not have the right to compel my labor (without due process) or speech (First Amendment).

 

[Neithan]

OTOH, a religion that practices (unwilling) human or animal sacrifice should not be protected since this is a clear and present danger to human or animal life.

Human sacrifice, certainly, because no legal right can supersede the right to life of a person. Animal sacrifice, though? If the animal is killed humanely and not wasted, I don’t see why that should be illegal or interfere with religious freedom. We allow butchery for food, so it could be subsumed in that area of jurisprudence.

 

[meltzerboy2]

I mean animal sacrifice with respect to a religious ritual, in which the animal is not used for food or clothing. Now I realize this was done in Ancient Judaism in the Temple for the purpose of exoneration, together with prayer, of the people’s sins (against G-d, not against their fellow man).
Therefore even here, I hesitate to banish animal sacrifice outright.

 

[Delphinus]

As a general rule of thumb, any and all constitutional rights end where another’s begins.

You can’t violate the rights of animals in horrifically cruel sacrifices for religious liberty. You can’t kill other people in the name of religion. Your freedom of speech is limited at another’s right to security. Your right to bear arms is limited as far as another’s right to their own property (no guns in a business, example) Of course, if there was logical consistency the right to bodily autonomy would be limited at abortion because it’s depriving another of a right to life, but that’s why there’s fights on that one.

 

[GordonP]

All the old, established religions allow for vaccinations. It’s only the newer ones who voice objections.
So it’s reasonable to start asking questions about how valid these objections are.

Orthodox Judaism is a newer religion? You are aware that the current measles crisis was caused by Hasidic Jews refusing to let their children be immunized on religious grounds.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Hasidic Jews are a very tiny subset of Jewish persons in this country. Most antivaccers are not Jewish.
Most Jewish authorities allow for vaccines.
I’m pretty sure this is not where measles is “coming from”.

 

[GordonP]

Hasidic Jews are a very tiny subset of Jewish persons in this country. Most antivaccers are not Jewish.
Most Jewish authorities allow for vaccines.
I’m pretty sure this is not where measles is “coming from”.

You’re assuming that they are spread evenly throughout the country, which they are not. They make up a significant portion of some neighborhoods in NYC, and are concentrated enough to form an environment where measles can easily spread throughout their community and beyond. The current outbreak has already cost the public millions of dollars. Similar outbreaks have occurred among the Amish.

As for anti-vaxers, most belong to evangelical or pentacostal churches, and the Amish, not “new religious groups”.

Read up about the current measles outbreak in NYC. You’re relying on your own guesswork, which is faulty.

 

[Genesis315]

From the Catholic perspective, in principle no, but in practice it depends on what will best serve the common good in a particular set of circumstances.

From the Catechism:

2109 The right to religious liberty can of itself be neither unlimited nor limited only by a “public order” conceived in a positivist or naturalist manner.39 The “due limits” which are inherent in it must be determined for each social situation by political prudence, according to the requirements of the common good, and ratified by the civil authority in accordance with "legal principles which are in conformity with the objective moral order."40

39 Cf. Pius VI, Quod aliquantum (1791) 10; Pius IX, Quanta cura 3.
40 Dignitatis Humanae 7 § 3

(the passages cited in the footnotes are especially illuminating on this topic)

First, religious liberty has to do with man’s ability “freely to assent to the divine truth which transcends the temporal order” (CCC 2106), that is, it has to do with the free act of faith, not morality, which can be known from reason. As the passage cited above from Dignitatis Humanae says, immorality in the name of religious freedom is an “abuse” and the state must limit it in the name of “a proper guardianship of public morality.”

Finally, religious liberty may be curtailed in order to defend or advance the common good. Note from the CCC passage above, the analysis of the common good cannot be positivist (it must be based on objective truth, including revealed truth), and it cannot be naturalist (that is, it must take into account man’s supernatural good). The common good includes both man’s temporal and spiritual prosperity (cf. CCC 1925). In the words of St. John XXIII:

Pacem in Terris

1. In this connection, We would draw the attention of Our own sons to the fact that the common good is something which affects the needs of the whole man, body and soul. That, then, is the sort of good which rulers of States must take suitable measure to ensure. They must respect the hierarchy of values, and aim at achieving the spiritual as well as the material prosperity of their subjects.(42)
2. These principles are clearly contained in that passage in Our encyclical Mater et Magistra where We emphasized that the common good "must take account of all those social conditions which favor the full development of human personality.(43)
3. Consisting, as he does, of body and immortal soul, man cannot in this mortal life satisfy his needs or attain perfect happiness. Thus, the measures that are taken to implement the common good must not jeopardize his eternal salvation; indeed, they must even help him to obtain it.(44)

That being said, even given all that, in a pluralistic society, especially where Catholics are a minority, a broad liberty for all is usually considered the best approach.

 

[JoeShlabotnik]

The Founding Fathers of our country understood enough about religion to know that we should have the freedom to practice the religion of our choice, but that there should be no religion forced on others. In other words, freedom to practice a religion or freedom not to practice a religion.
The problem we sometimes face is defining what a religion is.
The key to freedom itself is to be able to do what we want without stepping on someone’s else’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.