Why are religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws legal? For example, why is a cake maker allowed to refuse to serve people celebrating same sex marriage, due to personal religious beliefs? Why is this exemption allowed? Why is the government allowed to carve out religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws? Doesn't this violate the Establishment Clause? Government sanctioned religions prayer is already illegal per &quot;Engel v. Vitale&quot;. Government sanctioned religiously-motivated discriminated should be doubly illegal?
First of all, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission 584 U.S. ___ (2018) (Docket via Justia) was not settled on the merits. The Commission decision against the cake maker was overturned on procedural grounds, and no final decision on the merits has been made to date, to the best of my knowledge. And as Trish points out, the baker claimed that the law was, in effect, forcing him to use his individual artistic talents to make a statement endorsing a view that he deemed religiously wrong. Note that anti-discrimination laws are not an inherent right, they are statutes, created in the US by Congress and the state legislatures, and they prohibit just what the legislators have chosen to prohibit. For most of the history of the US there were no such laws, and Congress could repeal them tomorrow if it chose. So in a sense the only real reason why the laws grant certain religious exemptions is because Congress (or the various state legislatures) has said so. The actual exemption is found in 42 U.S. Code § 2000e–1 (a) which provides that: This subchapter shall not apply to an employer with respect to the employment of aliens outside any State, or to a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities. Thus it exempts a &quot;religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society&quot; from complying with that part of the anti-discrimination law that refers to employment. That would particularly be 42 U.S. Code § 2000e–2 (a) which provides that: (a) Employer practices -- It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer— (a) (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or (a) (2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. There is a further similar but more limited exemption in 42 U.S. Code § 2000e–2 (e) It would pretty obviously violate the free exercise clause to require a religious organization to hire, say, priests, ministers, or other religious leaders regardless of religion. But the exemption goes farther than that. A church may discriminate on religion, or on race or sex, say, in hiring janitors or other people whose functions have nothing to do with religion. Nothing in the US Constitution requires that broad an exemption. But on the other hand, nothing forbids it either. That was the decision of Congress, and was no doubt in part the product of a political compromise. There is a long history in the US of providing churches and other religious organizations a degree of exemption from ordinary laws, and this is in line with that tradition. Beyond that, why this particular exemption and not a somewhat narrower one was chose, is a matter of politics, not law. The question asserts: Government sanctioned religions prayer is already illegal per &quot;Engel v. Vitale&quot;. That is an over-broad reading of Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962). In that case (as the Wikipedia article puts it): the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in public schools, due to violation of the First Amendment. ... The Court held that the mere promotion of a religion [by the government] is sufficient to establish a violation, even if that promotion is not coercive. The case focused on the fact that the government had composed the text of the prayer in question, and that encouragement to recite it was a matter of official government policy. That is quite different from permitting private individuals or organizations to say voluntary prayers, or make hiring decisions based on religious distinctions.
Let's look at the Ur-example of a free-speech law, and the most wide-ranging, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It says (my emphasis): Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. This limitation applies only to the government. Indeed, it has been argued that this limitation only applies to the legislative branch of government and not to the executive (except when exercising legislatively delegated power) or judicial branches. Certainly, the courts have held that it is within their power to issue "gag" restraining orders. Notwithstanding, it imposes no restrictions on how non-government actors can limit your free speech. The owner of a shopping centre can require you not to evangelise, the owner of a stadium can require you not to use offensive language and the owner of a social media platform can restrict your speech in any way they wish. You have a right to talk - they have a right not to give you a platform.
In many countries (for instance, the US), churches and mosques are private property. In general, the owner of private property can throw anyone off their property; claiming you're doing an extensive period of praying doesn't matter, because they are under no obligation to let people stay as long as needed to pray (they can kick someone off the property for just about any reason). If there's a contract in play things are different, but contracts aren't in play in this situation. That said, nothing stops the church or mosque from letting the homeless stay there; this is actually not that uncommon (charity being a fairly common religious virtue).
Freedom of Religion Concerns I doubt that this policy would be held to be unlawful on First Amendment freedom of religion grounds. Indeed, such requirements usually exclude church-related service. Also, I don't see how this policy discriminates against your religion specifically. It seems on its face to apply to all religions equally. Even if "Church-related" is read broadly to include both service that benefits a church, and also service that is organized by a church, that doesn't preclude you from coming up with some other kind of service that is neither of these things. Why would you be prevented from coming up with service that is neither of these things when other students do not? Unless you have also undertaken Holy Orders or something, in which case 100% of your time away from school would be devoted to your church, it is hard to see what the problem would be with this requirement for you as opposed to someone else. And, it would probably be improper for a public school to allow you to use religious activities to satisfy a graduation requirement - that would sound like an establishment clause violation. Some of the relevant U.S. Supreme Court cases are: Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) This pair of cases shaped the modern understanding of how the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment constrains prayer in public schools. In Engel, the Court struck down a New York State rule that allowed public schools to hold a short, nondenominational prayer at the beginning of the school day. The Court decided that these prayers amounted to an “official stamp of approval” upon one particular kind of prayer and religious service, and said that, since teachers are agents of the federal government, the scheme violated the Establishment Clause. The reasoning in Engel was also applied in Schempp, in which the Court struck down a Pennsylvania policy that required all students to read 10 Bible verses and say the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of each day. While a student could get an exemption with a parent’s note, the Warren Court decided that this still amounted to an unconstitutional government endorsement of a particular religious tradition. Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) This case adjudicated a different sort of Establishment Clause challenge, where the controversy dealt with a statute providing financial support for teacher salaries and textbooks in parochial schools. The Burger Court unanimously decided that this financial aid scheme violated the Establishment Clause and delineated the governing precedent for Establishment Clause cases known as the Lemon test. Under Lemon, statutes (1) must have a secular legislative purpose; (2) must have primary effects that neither inhibit nor advance religion; and (3) cannot foster an “excessive government entanglement with religion.” The Court held that this scheme violated the third prong of the Lemon test. Allowing Church-related community service projects could implicate both the second and third prongs of the Lemon test. In a pertinent ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld a state constitutional requirement that no public funds be used to assist religious organizations, even if this prevented a facially neutral voucher program from treating religious and non-religious schools equally. The opinion in this 2015 case reviews some of the relevant law. A critical portion of the analysis is that aid to religious institutions must be limited to institutions that do not discriminate on the basis of religion and that supporting religious institutions at the K-12 level is more of a concern than doing so at the higher educational level. A Church, however, would (and should) discriminate on the basis of religion. In General There has been consideration of whether community service requirements, in general, are constitutional. Generally, courts have upheld the programs. See also here. In particular, Rhode Island is in the 1st Circuit of the federal courts, which has expressly ruled that community service requirements are constitutional. A 1999 law review article in the Duke Law Journal considers the issue from several perspectives. So does a 1997 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review article. A 1916 case called Butler v. Perry is a particularly strong precedent in favor of the proposition that mandatory service is constitutional, despite arguments to the contrary under the 13th Amendment. The issue was discussed in the New York Times in a 2003 article. Both are concerned about the involuntary servitude aspect of the requirement, but given that school attendance may be mandatory, and a community service requirement is one, relatively unconstrained aspect of mandatory educational activity, this isn't a very easy case to make.
The only applicable law is the local trespassing law. If he wants, the proprietor can demand that the patron leave, and if the patron does not leave, he can be arrested for trespassing. It uncontroversial that the First Amendment protects racist declarations.
None. The federal government is allowed to prohibit coffee drinking under its power to regulate interstate commerce. Prohibition would not have required a constitutional amendment under modern constitutional jurisprudence either. By analogy, this would be no different (constitutionally) than a law prohibiting putting lithium in sodas (something that used to be done in 7 Up) or putting cocaine in sodas (something that used to be done in Coca-Cola). Conceivably, the law might have to allow a religious exemption in certain circumstances under the 1st Amendment's free exercise clause, but while many faiths prohibit drinking coffee (most notably, offshoots of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), none of which I am aware require it as a matter of religious doctrine sincerely espoused.
No, and certainly not for the reason implied (essentially a one spouse per jurisdiction in which one has citizenship rule which doesn't exist anywhere). At least under the law of every U.S. jurisdiction, you cannot be married to more than one person at the same time (anywhere in the world), and it is a crime to do so. Several dozen countries in the world recognize polygamy as legal (mostly in predominantly Muslim countries, not all of which allow polygamy, and in Africa where pre-Christian custom permits it), of course, and this does not violate the laws of those jurisdictions. The U.K. does not generally permit polygamy, but gives some recognition to and does not criminalize, polygamous marriages entered into in a place where it is lawful. But the concept proposed in the question would still not be legal under U.K. law. UPDATE: A California court ruling concurs with this analysis.
united-states Since &quot;lying&quot; is not a clearly-defined legal concept, we need to look at a specific kind of (non)statement. Some lies are plainly illegal, for instance saying in the context of a sale that &quot;this column is made of pressure-treated lumber&quot; when in fact it is make of sand and Elmer's glue is fraud. A receptionist being told to say &quot;Mr. Smith is at a conference in New York&quot; when he is actually drunk in Chicago is a legal lie. Now the question is, who can refuse to tell this lie (without suffering employment consequences), and on what grounds? Generally, in the US you can be ordered to tell such a legal lie as part of your employment duties. If I refuse, I can be fired. If you refuse, you can request a reasonable accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, since you proffer that your religion requires you to tell the truth / forbids you from telling a falsehood. If you make a claim for a religious accommodation, then the issue becomes whether there is a reasonable alternative. Such an accommodation might be that you instead say &quot;Mr. Smith is not available&quot;; or perhaps someone else who does not have a religious objection will be forced to act as receptionist for the day. This is specifically about religion. &quot;I don't want to&quot; or any similar idea does not provide protection against being fired. However, bear in mind that there is no official list of approved religions and their beliefs which the courts will refer to in determining whether your refusal was protected. If you claim &quot;As a Pastafarian, I can't lie&quot;, the courts will not accept the premise that declaring yourself to be Pastafarian (a parody &quot;religion&quot;) is valid. The available governmental resources on the fine line between general moral code and religious beliefs are quite sparse.