Talk:Freedom of religion in the United States/Archive 1

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Archive 1

Deletion of some items from The Establishment Clause subsection

Part of this section makes the (POV?) argument that "However, since the 1980s, the Supreme Court has seemed to sidestep the Lemon test altogether."

I have deleted the citation of Agostini v. Felton in support of that argument. The court did not sidestep the Lemon test in that case. The decision says, in part,

[...] the Establishment Clause lays down no absolute bar to placing public employees in a sectarian school, Zobrest, 509 U.S., at 13 , and n. 10, but the rejection of such a per se rule was hinged expressly on the nature of the employee's job, sign language interpretation (or signing) and the circumscribed role of the signer. On this point (and without reference to the facts that the benefited student had received the same aid before enrolling in the religious school and the employee was to be assigned to the student not to the school) the Court explained itself this way: "[T]he task of a sign language interpreter seems to us quite different from that of a teacher or guidance counselor. . . . Nothing in this record suggests that a sign language interpreter would do more than accurately interpret whatever material is presented to the class as a whole. In fact, ethical guidelines require interpreters to `transmit everything that is said in exactly the same way it was intended.' " Id., at 13. The signer could thus be seen as more like a hearing aid than a teacher, and the signing could not be understood as an opportunity to inject religious content in what was supposed to be secular instruction. Zobrest accordingly holds only that in these limited circumstances where a public employee simply translates for one student the material presented to the class for the benefit of all students, the employee's presence in the sectarian school does not violate the Establishment Clause. Id., at 13-14. Cf. Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 617 (1971) ("[T]eachers have a substantially different ideological character from books [and] [i]n terms of potential for involving some aspect of faith or morals in secular subjects, a textbook's content is ascertainable, but a teacher's handling of a subject is not.

Also, I have deleted the citation of Zelman v. Simmons-Harris in support of that argument. The court did not sidestep the Lemon test in that case. The decision says, in part:

[...] A central tool in our analysis of cases in this area has been the Lemon test. As originally formulated, a statute passed this test only if it had "a secular legislative purpose," if its "principal or primary effect" was one that "neither advance[d] nor inhibit[ed] religion," and if it did "not foster an excessive government entanglement with religion." Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U. S. 602, 612-613 (1971) (internal quotation marks omitted). In Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 218, 232-233 (1997), we folded the entanglement inquiry into the primary effect inquiry. This made sense because both inquiries rely on the same evidence, see ibid., and the degree of entanglement has implications for whether a statute advances or inhibits religion, see Lynch v. Donnelly, 465 U. S. 668, 688 (1984) (O'Connor, J., concurring). The test today is basically the same as that set forth in School Dist. of Abington Township v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 222 (1963) (citing Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1 (1947); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 442 (1961)), over 40 years ago.
The Court's opinion in these cases focuses on a narrow question related to the Lemon test: how to apply the primary effects prong in indirect aid cases? Specifically, it clarifies the basic inquiry when trying to determine whether a program that distributes aid to beneficiaries, rather than directly to service providers, has the primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, Lemon v. Kurtzman, supra, at 613-614, or, as I have put it, of "endors[ing] or disapprov[ing] ... religion," Lynch v. Donnelly, supra, at 691-692 (concurring opinion); see also Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 69-70 (1985) (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment). See also ante, at 10. Courts are instructed to consider two factors: first, whether the program administers aid in a neutral fashion, without differentiation based on the religious status of beneficiaries or providers of services; second, and more importantly, whether beneficiaries of indirect aid have a genuine choice among religious and nonreligious organizations when determining the organization to which they will direct that aid. If the answer to either query is "no," the program should be struck down under the Establishment Clause. See ante, at 10-11.
Justice Souter portrays this inquiry as a departure from Everson. See post, at 2-3 (dissenting opinion). A fair reading of the holding in that case suggests quite the opposite. Justice Black's opinion for the Court held that the "[First] Amendment requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to be their adversary." Everson, supra, at 18; see also Schempp, supra, at 218, 222. How else could the Court have upheld a state program to provide students transportation to public and religious schools alike? What the Court clarifies in these cases is that the Establishment Clause also requires that state aid flowing to religious organizations through the hands of beneficiaries must do so only at the direction of those beneficiaries. Such a refinement of the Lemon test surely does not betray Everson.

The court may have interpreted the lemon test differently that the author of this portion of the article would have, but it did not sidestep the Lemon test. (or is that just my own POV talking?) -- Boracay Bill 02:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I just found this article and could have sworn I'd seen the same thing elsewhere; eventually I found it here. For all I can tell these are the same thing, while this seems the better name. Merge and redirect? Mackan79 16:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Unless someone objects, I'm going to start moving material in from there to here. I see this article is fairly uneven as well, so hopefully the two can combine to form something better. Of course, if the other title is better for some reason we can always move it. Mackan79 17:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge completed, hopefully alright with others. Thanks, Mackan79 18:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

School Prayer

Under Lemon Test there was a discussion of School Prayer citing multiple Supreme Court Rulings. I am commenting here to point out that I have not only substantially altered the text, but in some ways nearly reversed its apparent meaning. The original text repeatedly stated or implied that the Supreme Court ruled to deny students the freedom to pray in school. I changed it to state that the rulings only prohibited government acts to establish official prayer activity. The already existing links to the specific court cases back me up on that. I am commenting here to invite dispute, or for people preserve the more accurate presentation if there is no dispute.

Also the School Prayer discussion seems awkwardly placed under the Lemon Test section or poorly integrated to that section. I wasn't up for a restructuring attempt, but maybe someone else wants to take a try at fixing the flow? Alsee (talk) 02:05, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Freedom of religion & age

I am badly missing informations about freedom of religion & age. Which is the minimum age for persons to claim freedom of religion in the U. S. and elsewhere? The law in Germany provides a term of religious majority (de:Religionsmündigkeit) which applies on kids 14+ who have the right to follow their own beliefs even if their parents don't share those. --Stilfehler (talk) 15:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Islam

I know plenty of Chinese Christians and they are more respected there then they are in my country, Britain, equally I have never been anywhere so tolerant of Muslims. Compare this page with it's Chinese counterpart, this page is a total whitewash. Where's the infomation on attacks on Muslims, and Sikhs mistaken for Muslims, after September 11th or on conservative pundits like Ann Coulter advocating a genocide in the Middle East?210.74.155.90 (talk) 11:02, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This whole wiki entry is such a whitewash as to be a joke. Maybe there should be some mention of the insinuations and outcry of Obama being Muslim, or how about Keith Ellison and his Qu'ran swearing in controversy, which was increased by the conservative news media in the US. Religious freedom in the US isn't as open or as 'free' as this article or many Americans would like you to believe. It's not nearly as tolerant as it makes itself out to be. You only have to switch on the TV channels from Evangelist groups to conservative media channels, to even talk show hosts and you can quite clearly see that.

There won't be a section on the modern day downwards trend of religious freedom in the US because it would be disparaging to America and shed light on an uncomfortable truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.21.39 (talk) 16:45, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Just noting that an anon using IP 209.74.6.178 disputed 210.74.155.90's assertion above that Ann Coulter advocated a genocide in the Middle East. The edit adding the dispute re that assertion contained other elements which were clearly unconstructive, and it was reverted by AzureFury. AFAICS, the dispute of the assertion re Ms. Coulter, though, didn't merit removal. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:38, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not really my job to write people's comments for them. There's nothing stopping this anon from reposting what little of his previous post was constructive. I doubt someone raging that badly will make the effort, though. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 03:38, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Separation of church and state

Even though the topic has its own article, should separation of church and state in the United States and state be briefly mentioned in this article? --J. Cal. 22:15, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, by whom is the so-called separation of church and state closely associated with freedom of religion? That's a bit vague--closely associated. At least you point out that it was a concept advocated by Thomas Jefferson, not a part of the US Constitution. Still, I find that the "separation of church and state" is cited most often to deny religious freedoms. That may be just my opinion, but it's also someone else's opinion that the separation of church and state is closely associated with religious freedom. It implies that they go together, hand in hand, Batman and Robin, peanut butter and jelly. They do not. --134.241.100.213 (talk) 18:29, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Jehovas witness section extremely un-neutral PoV

I think in the spirit of informing, the JW section is extremely non-pov. I'm on a laptop so I am definitely not up to copying and pasting every part of it for examples, but I think about 75% of the section is quotes from various, relatively un-important people about how great of a work they did, while about 25% or less is about the actual legislation. While I don't doubt that they have done important work, I do not think that a wikipeidia article is a good arena for a section devoted to praise of the work, only a report of the actual legislation.

Gravity 72.129.224.112 (talk) 02:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC) (I actually do have an account somewhere, but again, I hate this laptop so much.)

Don't expect much from Wikipedia. They don't respond well to criticism. They are very defensive. They're simply going to write things their own biased way and there's nothing anyone can do about it.--134.241.100.213 (talk) 18:36, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

There is an old phrase on WP that applies here → so fix it. -- 208.81.184.4 (talk) 18:57, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Athiests "legally protected"

This edit tagged an unsupported sentence about this with {{cn}}. The sentence looks like a non-sequitur to me, and I've removed it. This came into the article in this Jaunary 2009 edit, where the edit summary said that it added material cut&pasted from an old revision of the Discrimination against atheists. I wasn't able to quickly locate the old revision of that article which sourced the material. Perhaps the Situation of atheists section of this article this article can benefit from some synchronization with the current version of Discrimination against atheists#United States. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:19, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Texas, and religious requirements

This edit by someone editing anonymously IP address 24.214.119.81 removed a cite-supported addition I had recently made of Texas to a list of U.S. States with constitutions which require belief in God or a Supreme Being as a prerequisite for holding public office or being a witness in court. The stated reason for this removal was, "IF you read what the Texas consitution says, it CLEARLY states that if you ackowledge a supreme being that it can't exclude you from office". User:Intoronto1125 reverted this removal, and the IP reverted the reversion.

Article I, Section 4 of the Texas constitution (which is quoted by the supporting source which I cited) says, "RELIGIOUS TESTS. No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being." As I read that, it clearly requires, as a qualification, that the existence of a Supreme Being be acknowledged. I believe that this constitutional requirement that existence of a Supreme Being be acknowledged justifies placing Texas in this list. Consequently, I have re-added Texas to the list. I'll place a pointer to this talk page section on User talk:24.214.119.81. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 06:09, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

-If I were to say "you have a bad hair cut, provided you have hair." That means if you have hair, that it is a bad hair cut. The meaning of what you are reading is that if you acknowledge a supreme being, it can not be held against you. You are reading it the wrong way. You want it to say something because you want to add Texas to that list, so you read it the way you want it. Just as Texas was on the list of states that require a religious test, although the Texas Constitution clearly says that is not the case. You wouldn't happen to know the person who did that would you?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.214.119.81 (talk • contribs) 05:51, June 22, 2011

AFAICT, you're right and I'm wrong as far as grammatical considerations go. I should have paid more attention in English 101. Semicolons are intermediate in strength between terminal marks and commas. When a semicolon marks the left boundary of a constituent (e.g., a clause or a phrase), the right boundary is marked by punctuation of equal or greater strength. If I understand this correctly, the dependent clause is associated with the independent clause in the constituent phrase delimited by the semicolon wherein it shares placement. I've self-reverted my addition on the strength of this.

However, this interpretation contradicts the interpretation in Texas Constitution#Article 1: "Bill of Rights", in the "Statement of Faith" section of the bio of David Simpson (Texas politician) here, in the article on Religious Tests & Civil Society in the March/April 2004 issue of Liberty magazine, and elsewhere. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:25, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

I can see someone here really has it out for Texas and wants to add it to the list. First, the interpretation of the Texas Constitution#Article 1: "Bill of Rights" does not contain any references that support the idea you want it to on the page. All you did was point out that there is another page that says something wrong without supported information to back it up. ONE politician using bad interpretation of the article does not mean much of anything and is not a viable source. Also, I'm pretty sure Liberty magazine fits in the Wikipedia definition of a questionable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.214.119.81 (talk) 21:53, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

It's not a big deal to me point of view wise. It is a bigger deal due weight wise, but I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it. Also, presuming from the short contributions history from this IP address that you might be fairly new to Wikipedia, I'll suggest a look at the initial paragraph of WP's verifiability policy. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 06:03, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

I am aware of that paragraph, the key word there is a reliable. As I have previously pointed out, there have been no reliable sources presented that contain that point of view. However, a basic understanding of the English language and the actual document point to the true meaning. I wonder since you care about items needing to be verified, if you have went back and changed the page that I pointed out does not have ANY source to support what it says. Oh, wait, you haven't, because you like what it says. Point of view wise, it is spot on with what you want it to say, no matter the lack of source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.214.119.81 (talk) 21:45, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

The Texas constitution clearly requires a belief in the existence of a "Supreme Being"...

Sec. 4. RELIGIOUS TESTS. No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

As such, I have returned Texas to the list of states that require religious belief. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 08:42, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

significant cases have affirmed rights such as ...

I was sufficiently uncomfortable with this edit that I removed the list which it inserted. I took that the addition of that list to this particular article as an implicit asserttion that the rights listed there were affirmed on religious freedom grounds. That was not supported and, as I understand it, is not unarguably true.

West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette is a key case affirming the right to refrain from compulsory flag salute. As I understand it, the decision was on freedom of expression grounds, not on freedom of religion grounds. ([1])
According to Conscientious objection#Current legal situation, criteria for recognition of valid conscientious objection include non-religious moral belief.
I don't know about preaching in public (proselytizing) but, if there are SCOTUS cases on point for this, I would expect them to have been decided on freedom of expression grounds, not on freedom of religion grounds.

Incidentally, and not relevant to this article, my interest in this was piqued because I happen to have earlier read a Supreme Court of the Philippines case involving refusal to render a flag salute. That one was decided on freedom of religion grounds. The Philippine constitution has freedom of expression and religion guarantees which are at least as strong as those in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Philippine society, though, is over 90% Roman Catholic, and the court's opinion in that case reflected that by editorializing to say, "exemption may be accorded to the Jehovah's Witnesses with regard to the observance of the flag ceremony out of respect for their religious beliefs, however 'bizarre' those beliefs may seem to others." See [2].I've stricken my remark here. On reconsideration, it is clear that this editorialization in the decision probably sprung from intolerant nationalistic attitudes as much as or more than from intolerant religious attitudes. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:51, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

whats this "freedom in the united states" crap

This is an American website. Why do liberals have to Europeanize everything?

--69.37.150.195 (talk) 18:03, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Uh, no it's not an American site, it's a English-language website. May I direct you to List of countries where English is an official language so that you can educate yourself that this is not an American site? Also try List of countries by English-speaking population. Thanks for giving me the chance to educate you. --David Shankbone 18:08, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

On a less confrontational and perhaps more helpful note, the reason this article is named "Freedom of religion in the United States" and not simply "Freedom of religion" is that the Freedom of religion article attempts to address that topic in general terms and this article attempts the topic of Freedom of religion within the context of the country and culture of the United States. -- Boracay Bill (talk) 23:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

whats the freedom of religion?!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.131.79.33 (talk • contribs) 01:29, January 7, 2010

The ability or lack thereof to worship or not worship any deity. AzureFury (talk | contribs) 17:31, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

What is it with americans (more so than other countries) thinking they are the center of the universe? *sigh* 178.174.233.44 (talk) 00:52, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Seventh Day Adventist section

The section under "Case Studies" detailing the alleged religious discrimination by Seventh Day Adventists is both out-of-place and likely NPOV. This page is about freedom of religion within the United States. Not only is private discrimination in hiring practices by an individual (and international) denomination outside the purview of the topic at hand, it doesn't really make any sense. By definition, virtually all religions discriminate in their hiring practices given that they only hire members of their religion in key positions. Why would Seventh Day Adventists refusing to hire non-Adventists be an infringement of the religious beliefs or practices of the non-Adventists? On the contrary, forcing the Adventists to hire them would probably be an infringement of their religious beliefs.

The anti-Catholicism claims in the section are perhaps more notable if we moved them, but they're unsourced. Even then, the article contains a long section about anti-Catholicism among American Protestants, I'm not sure why a specific example of a denomination holding anti-papists views is necessary. (And again, by definition don't ALL Protestants hold anti-papist views?) I'd appreciate any opinions on the matter, but I'm leaning towards a removal. Joker1189 (talk) 18:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

United States Constitution

Dear whom It May Concern:

I just wanted to know how do you expect people to look things up if it is not really organized it just looks like it is so email me back @ faith_516@yahoo.com to give me an answer!!!

Truly Yours, A participant — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:B:2780:609:F8B2:5343:AFC6:3219 (talk) 00:42, 17 December 2013 (UTC)