Rose: You think the First Amendment rendering it unconstitutional for Congress to make laws that prohibit free religious exercise equates to a presumption for the free exercise of religion across the board.

So what precisely does the First Amendment protect? What assumption underlies any particular decision determining whether or not a law violates that clause by prohibiting religion? If it is still possible to raise laws that do, in effect, prohibit religious exercise, then I suppose the big problem here is that I fail to see the value of that particular clause. If anything, it looks to me as though it functions to implicitly condone some forms of religion while implicitly outlawing others. How that squares with either the intent or the normative interpretations of the First Amendment is beyond me, and I'm not sure, in retrospect, that I at all understand the point of the clause in the first place.

What I'm saying, Mad, is that your interpretation of the free religious exercise clause is not supported by the caselaw and not supported by history.

And what I'm now asking is, what interpetations, if any, are supported by history and caselaw? (And then, as a follow up, are those interpretations that we feel ought to be maintained?)

In the instant case, Congress did not make any law prohibiting free religious exercise

Mad: Voodoo religious ceremony involves animal sacrifice...

Heh heh heh...I know you had no intention in starting a sidetrack discussion on animal sacrifice, but this is an interesting, relatively recent, SCOTUS decision on animal sacrifice within the Santeria faith. Thought you might enjoy it. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993). Sorry for the delay, it took me a couple extra tries to find the case. I first read a little while ago.

Edited by: irishrosem at: 7/17/07 6:16 pm

Mad: So what precisely does the First Amendment protect?

Ay, there's the rub, eh Mad? And now we are left with constitutional interpretation