{"id":659,"date":"2023-06-03T19:48:09","date_gmt":"2023-06-03T19:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/analysis-of-the-free-exercise-clause-in-the-first-amendment\/"},"modified":"2023-06-03T19:49:04","modified_gmt":"2023-06-03T19:49:04","slug":"analysis-of-the-free-exercise-clause-in-the-first-amendment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/analysis-of-the-free-exercise-clause-in-the-first-amendment\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis of the Free Exercise Clause in the First Amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Video<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"entry-content-asset\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Johji&#039;s analysis of the Free Exercise Clause\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4vyHyJI_aeA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Written Component<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Free Exercise Clause states that Congress cannot make laws \u201cprohibiting the free exercise\u201d of religious beliefs. The clause is part of the Bill of Rights, ten constitutional amendments that listed rights the federal government must protect. It was a natural outgrowth of a long debate about religious freedom in the Thirteen Colonies, where some colonies restricted religion while others, such as Virginia, enabled religious freedom. Founding Fathers like Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson advocated for religious freedom, which was eventually instated in the First Amendment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The plain English interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause is that Congress may not pass laws that stop citizens from practicing their religion. However, the Supreme Court has interpreted this clause to allow some limitations. The central question for interpreting the clause is to what extent it protects religious actions considered harmful to society. In the case <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reynolds v. United States<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the Supreme Court decided that, while a law may not regulate religious beliefs, it can regulate actions that result from those beliefs. The Supreme Court revised the rules in <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wisconsin v. Yoder<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to limit laws that regulate religion to situations where the public interest is \u201ccompelling,\u201d meaning it must be absolutely necessary to protect the state or citizens. Further laws and cases have added that regulations on religious actions must use the \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">least restrictive means,\u201d limiting<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> religious expression as little as possible even if that makes enforcing laws harder. The result of these interpretations is a compromise between total adherence and disregard for the Free Exercise Clause<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The debate surrounding the Free Exercise Clause reflects multiple themes from our class and throughout history. The American Constitution, including\u00a0 \u00a0 a vision of religious tolerance developed by European Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke and Voltaire demonstrates history\u2019s\u00a0 interconnectedness. The clause also shows how laws reveal values, similar to how the Manden Charter in Mali provided a lens into that society. Finally, the Free Exercise Clause demonstrates the complexities of dealing with\u00a0 the \u201cOther,\u201d protecting minority rights in the Constitution but allowing old white men with power to limit those protections through court cases.<\/span><\/p> <p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Personally, when it comes to the Free Exercise Clause, I think both abolishment or literal interpretation would be dangerous. Without the clause, the majority could dictate the expression of beliefs of minority groups. A literal interpretation, however, would let people use religion as an excuse and make it impossible to protect society. The only solution is a compromise as the court has attempted to achieve, but it is challenging to find the perfect balance. This difficulty leads to the Supreme Court occasionally allowing unjust violations, like upholding President Trump\u2019s \u201cMuslim Ban&#8221; against many majority Muslim countries. It also sometimes allows religious practices that harm people, such as making it legal for employers to deny full healthcare due to religious beliefs in the case <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. While compromises may be complicated and lead to some bad decisions, finding a balance is necessary to create a functioning democracy.<\/span><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Free Exercise Clause states that Congress cannot make laws \u201cprohibiting the free exercise\u201d of religious beliefs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6534,"featured_media":628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[798,21,794,793,79,176,147,151,175,186,347,558,795,797,796,146,19],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-1-amendment","tag-amendment","tag-analysis","tag-analysis-of-the-free-exercise-clause-in-the-first-amendment","tag-clause","tag-exercise","tag-first","tag-first-amendment","tag-free","tag-free-exercise","tag-free-exercise-clause","tag-in","tag-johji","tag-johji-nakada","tag-nakada","tag-of","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dalton.org\/theconstitution\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}