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17 - Forced Conformity or Accommodation?

Reconciling Conscience and Difference in a Pluralistic Democracy

from Part III - Applied Topics in Law and Conscience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2021

Jeffrey B. Hammond
Affiliation:
Faulkner University
Helen M. Alvare
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
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Summary

Mark Rienzi observes the tension in the United States' pluralistic democracy between religious diversity and majority rule. He notes that the Supreme Court has forged a path of religious accommodation, versus forced conformity, and this has not led to anarchy. In the past, the Court and legislatures have sometimes pushed limited religious toleration or even forced conformity. Today, the accommodationist path is illustrated in the Court’s second Jehovah’s Witness-pledge case, and in legislative and Supreme Court treatment of conscientious objectors to military service. Conscience protections for those opposed to abortion have been strong Roe v. Wade in 1973. They have been extended to institutions and individuals, and often protect religious and non-religious objections. Even following the Court’s 1990 case curtailing mandatory Free Exercise accommodations, Congress and many states adopted statutory religious conscience protections. Many states interpreted their state constitutions to provide protections for religious freedom. This has not resulted in anarchy but has preserved the ability of many medical professionals and religious social service institutions to continue their services.

Type
Chapter
Information
Christianity and the Laws of Conscience
An Introduction
, pp. 336 - 353
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Recommended Reading

Anderson, Ryan T., Corvino, John, and Girgis, Sherif. Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination. New York, ny: Oxford University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Barringer Gordon, Sarah. The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill, nc: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.Google Scholar
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Hasson, Kevin Seamus. The Right to Be Wrong. San Francisco, ca: Encounter Books, 2005.Google Scholar
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McConnell, Michael. “Why Is Religious Liberty the ‘First Freedom’?Cardozo Law Review 21, no. 4 (February 2000): 1243–65.Google Scholar
Paul, VI. Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions). October 29, 1965.Google Scholar
Paulsen, Michael Stokes, and Paulsen, Luke. The Constitution: An Introduction. New York, ny: Basic Books, 2015.Google Scholar
Rienzi, Mark L.The Case for Religious Exemptions – Whether Religion Is Special or Not.” Review of Why Tolerate Religion?, by Leiter, Brian and Defending American Religious Neutrality, by Koppelman, Andrew. Harvard Law Review 127, no. 5 (2014): 13951418.Google Scholar
Wardle, Lynn D.Protection of Health-Care Providers’ Rights of Conscience in American Law: Present, Past, and Future.” Ave Maria Law Review 9, no. 1 (2011): 146.Google Scholar
Washington, George. Letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, August 18, 1790. In The Papers of George Washington, edited by Abbot, W. W, et al., 6:285. Charlottesville, va: University of Virginia Press, 1987.Google Scholar
West, John G. The Politics of Revelation and Reason: Religion and Civic Life in the New Nation. Lawrence, ks: University Press of Kansas, 1996.Google Scholar
Wilken, Robert Louis. Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom. New Haven, ct: Yale University Press, 2019.Google Scholar

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