Religion Lessons from Europe: Intolerant Secularism, Pluralistic Neutrality, and the U.S. Supreme Court

Case law from the European Court of Human Rights demonstrates to the U.S. Supreme Court how a pluralistic neutrality principle can enrich the American society and harness the value of faith in the public sphere, while at the same time retaining the vigorous protection of individual religious rights. The unfortunate alternative to a jurisprudence built around pluralistic neutrality is the inevitability of intolerant secularism—an increasingly militant separation of religious ideals from the public life, leading ultimately to a repressive society that has no room in its government for religious citizens. The results of intolerant secularism are seen in a recent series of negative cases decided by the European Court, which illustrate how highly secularized nations can trample the fundamental rights of religious citizens for the sake of secular ideals. The Supreme Court can avoid this type of intolerance in the United States by distancing itself from the principle of strict neutrality that the Court often has repeated in its Establishment Clause cases. A better path for the Supreme Court is to emulate a series of positive cases from the European Court that demonstrate pluralistic values. These cases show the value that religion can bring to public life, and the ability of progressive nations to welcome religious diversity into the public square without harming individual rights. The net result of this shift in the Supreme Court’s focus—without sacrificing the value and purpose of the Establishment Clause—would be to promote the cause of religious pluralism in the United States, and to enhance the dignity of the American people to live out their religious faith in the community insofar as they choose (or do not choose) to do

A Juror’s Religious Freedom Bill of Rights

The prosecution of Democrat Congresswoman Corrine Brown for campaign corruption was perhaps the most significant and dramatic political trial ever to hit Northeast Florida—and that was before the Holy Spirit showed up and spoke to Juror 13 during deliberations. The Brown case is the springboard for the article’s focus on a juror’s right to religious liberty, one of the nation’s most precious constitutional rights. The Article addresses first principles behind the process of jury selection in the United States, as well as the importance and safeguarding of religious liberty in the U.S. Constitution. It then proposes six tenets to be contained within a proposed bill of rights for jurors: (1) the right to a religious identity (or not); (2) the right to be free from religious discrimination; (3) the right to religious accommodations during jury service; (4) the right to commune with a higher power; (5) the right to religious privacy; and (6) the right and duty to follow the law and not do wrong against others, even for religious reasons. The Article provides historical context and case examples that demonstrate the need for and exercise of the proposed rights, and it recommends adopting the bill of rights at all phases of jury selection and service

Born-Again RFRA: Will the Military Backslide on its Religious Conversion?

This Article details the importance of religious freedom in the United States and its armed forces, as well as the unfortunate history of non-accommodation that has plagued the Department of Defense (DoD) until recent years. It reviews the jurisprudence surrounding military service member free-exercise claims before and after the landmark Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993, and it analyzes how courts have addressed those claims within the military. It proposes an analysis for handing religious accommodation claims under RFRA in the military, and examines a series of hypotheticals that demonstrate the issues the DoD must confront and accommodate if it is to value its members’ religious liberty