Freedom of Religion_____

[LifeHiscost]

__________becoming just a catch phrase for humanistic adaptation?

Quote:

Constitution Check: Is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act unconstitutional?

National Constitution Center

By Lyle Denniston

Lyle Denniston looks at a claim that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is actually a law that advocates the establishment of religion and is unconstitutional.

Those questions have been raised over and over again, about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, since Congress passed that law in 1993 with the explicit aim of overruling a Supreme Court decision three years earlier. In its 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, the Court upheld the power of government at all levels to pass laws that everyone had to obey, even if those laws imposed a burden on the specific religious practice of one sect. Such general laws, the court concluded, did not violate that sect’s constitutional right to freely express its faith.

The Smith decision caused a political uproar, challenged widely as a major threat to religious liberty. Congress passed RFRA to overrule the decision, fashioning its own notions of what would be unconstitutional in general laws that impacted faith practices.

But that very direct form of constitutional expression promptly stirred up some fundamental new issues. Was RFRA a law that changed constitutional law from what the Supreme Court had said it meant, doing so by a simple enactment rather than a constitutional amendment, or was it merely a mandate on how to interpret the scope of laws that impact religious practice, and thus well within Congress’s power to legislate public policy norms? Did it go too far to protect specific religious practices, thus crossing the line into endorsement?

Lyle Denniston is the National Constitution Center’s adviser on constitutional literacy. He has reported on the Supreme Court for 55 years, currently covering it for SCOTUSblog, an online clearinghouse of information about the Supreme Court’s work.

Foot steps of the coming King!!!!!!!!!!

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