Public Policy Against Religion: Doubting Thomas

In free exercise cases, the Supreme Court has adopted a least restrictive alternative test in an attempt to maximize protection for religiously motivated practices. Because the least restrictive alternative test only considers the importance of the governmental interest and the availability of alternative means to accomplish those interests, thereby ignoring the importance of the burdened religious activity to the individual and the degree of burden on religious activity, all religious interests are treated equally when asserted against a governmental interest. Under such an inflexible and brittle test, the Supreme Court has recently denied religious claims which had previously been recognized. The author argues that only a test which considers all aspects of a religious claim affords permanent and maximum protection of religious interests

Book Reviews

THE ASSAULT ON PRIVACY. By Arthur R. Miller. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1971. Pp. xiv, 333. $7.95. TRIAL DIPLOMACY. By Alan E. Morrill. Chicago: Court Practice Institute, 1971. Pp. xxix, 1174.$17.50 (Paperback)

Book Reviews

POLITICAL AND CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE UNITED STATES, THIRD EDITION. Edited by Thomas I. Emerson, David Haber, and Norman Dorsen. CRIMINAL INTERROGATION AND CONFESSIONS, SECOND EDITION. By Fred E. Inbau and John E. Reid