Reasonable Dissent

Religious freedom doesn’t mean breaking laws

There’s a story about a law in Tennessee that was approved this summer that, according to the article, “puts in place a “strict scrutiny” legal rule that makes it easier for people claiming a law or ordinance violates their religious beliefs to win their cases.”  I looked into the actual law, here [pdf], and it wasn’t plainly obvious if that was true, but it does have some interesting wording:

(b) Except as provided in subsection (c), no government entitiy shall substantially burden a person’s free exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.

(c) No government entity shall substantially burden a person’s free exercise of religion unless it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is:

(1) Essential to further a compelling governmental interest; and

(2) The least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

Here’s my problem with the precedent that this sets: we’re going beyond being ‘free’ to practice a religion to making special cases for it. Being free to practice a religion comes after you obey the laws that everyone else does. This particular law doesn’t exactly allow you to sacrifice your children for a religion, but it’s a step in the wrong direction.

It reminds me of the story about the Christian churches that were barred from ringing their bells because of noise restrictions, and they ended up suing over it. They had a good point: exceptions were made for the ice-cream trucks, but not for them, and it was overly vague. They also had bad points: “its pastor, Bishop Rick Painter, was sentenced for ringing his church’s bells as a way of praising God.” No, if you read the story it mentions that he was told by city officials that he could not do it, and chose to break the law anyway. It had nothing to do with his choice of method for “praising God” and everything to do with knowing that he would be breaking the law and doing it anyway.

The point is that you are more than welcome to use the same means as everyone else to fight a law you disagree with. But either way it’s the law, and just because the reason behind you wanting to break the law is religious, that shouldn’t give you any special power.

Tags: General