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Simple English definitions for legal terms
Religion and the Constitution
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A quick definition of Religion and the Constitution:
The Constitution and religion have a complicated relationship. The people who wrote the Constitution wanted to keep religion separate from the government. They believed that the government should not tell people what religion to follow or not follow. The Constitution has two parts that talk about religion. The first part says that the government cannot make any laws that support or go against any religion. The second part says that people have the right to practice their religion without the government stopping them. However, the government can still make laws that stop people from doing certain things in the name of religion. The Constitution only applies to the federal government, but the Supreme Court has said that it also applies to state and local governments. Recently, the Supreme Court had to decide if a company could refuse to give its employees certain healthcare because of the owners' religious beliefs. The Court said that the company could refuse, but not because of the Constitution. Instead, they said that a different law protected the company's religious beliefs.
A more thorough explanation:
Religion and the Constitution refer to the relationship between the government and religion in the United States. The framers of the Constitution believed in a separation of church and state, which means that the government should not have the power to influence its citizens toward or away from a religion. The Constitution maintains a general silence on the subject of religion, except for two instances.
The first instance is in Article VI, which prohibits any religious tests as a requisite qualification for public service. The second instance is in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, which contains two clauses that prescribe the government's relationship with religion.
The Establishment Clause in the First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." This means that the federal government cannot adopt any official religion or take any stance in favor of or against any religion. However, the Supreme Court has allowed a certain degree of government involvement in religion, such as government funding for private religious schools and prayers to begin certain legislative meetings.
The Free Exercise Clause in the First Amendment prohibits Congress from interfering with an individual's exercise of religion. This means that individuals have the right to believe and practice their religion without government interference. However, the Supreme Court has interpreted limits to the Free Exercise Clause and allowed the government to legislate against certain religious practices, such as bigamy and peyote use.
The Bill of Rights only expressly limits the federal government, but the Fourteenth Amendment extends the protections of religious freedom in the First Amendment to state and local governments. For example, in Cantwell v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court ruled that a local ordinance that required a license for religious solicitation violated the Free Exercise Clause.
The "Hobby Lobby" case is a more recent example of the Court's foray into the interaction between religion and the Constitution. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Court struck down a law that required for-profit corporations to provide certain contraceptives as part of their healthcare packages for their employees. The Court found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 prohibited the federal government from imposing a mandate on corporations to provide certain contraceptives in their health care packages for their employees.