Religion and the Constitution, Volume 1: Free Exercise and Fairness

by Kent Greenawalt

Overview

Balancing respect for religious conviction and the values of liberal democracy is a daunting challenge for judges and lawmakers, particularly when religious groups seek exemption from laws that govern others. Should members of religious sects be able to use peyote in worship? Should pacifists be forced to take part in military service when there is a draft, and should this depend on whether they are religious? How can the law address the refusal of parents to provide medical care to their children—or the refusal of doctors to perform abortions? Religion and the Constitution presents a new framework for addressing these and other controversial questions that involve competing demands of fairness, liberty, and constitutional validity.


In the first of two major volumes on the intersection of constitutional and religious issues in the United States, Kent Greenawalt focuses on one of the Constitution's main clauses concerning religion: the Free Exercise Clause. Beginning with a brief account of the clause's origin and a short history of the Supreme Court's leading decisions about freedom of religion, he devotes a chapter to each of the main controversies encountered by judges and lawmakers. Sensitive to each case's context in judging whether special treatment of religious claims is justified, Greenawalt argues that the state's treatment of religion cannot be reduced to a single formula.


Calling throughout for religion to be taken more seriously as a force for meaning in people's lives, Religion and the Constitution aims to accommodate the maximum expression of religious conviction that is consistent with a commitment to fairness and the public welfare.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691141138
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	07/26/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.25(d)

About the Author

Kent Greenawalt is University Professor at Columbia University, teaching in the law school, and a former Deputy Solicitor General of the United States. His books include Does God Belong in Public Schools? and Fighting Words (both Princeton), as well as Conflicts of Law and Morality and Religious Convictions and Political Choice.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1

CHAPTER 2: History and Doctrine 11

CHAPTER 3: Freedom from Compelled Profession of Belief, Adverse Targeting, and Discrimination 35

CHAPTER 4: Conscientious Objection to Military Service 49

CHAPTER 5: Religious Exemptions and Drug Use 68

CHAPTER 6: Free Exercise Objections to Educational Requirements 86

CHAPTER 7: Sincerity 109

CHAPTER 8: Saying What Counts as Religious 124

CHAPTER 9: Controlled Environments: Military and Prison Life 157

CHAPTER 10: Indirect Impingements: Unemployment Compensation 172

CHAPTER 11: Sunday Closing Laws and Sabbatarian

Business Owners 184

CHAPTER 12: Government Development of Sacred Property 192

CHAPTER 13: Difficult Determinations: Burden and

Government Interest 201

CHAPTER 14: Land Development and Regulation 233

CHAPTER 15: Confidential Communications with Clergy 246

CHAPTER 16: Settling Disputes over Church Property 261

CHAPTER 17: Wrongs and Rights of Religious Association: The

Limits of Tort Liability for Religious Groups and

Their Leaders 290

CHAPTER 18: Employment Relations: Ordinary Discrimination

and Accommodation 326

CHAPTER 19: Employment Relations: Harassment 359

CHAPTER 20: Rights of Religious Associations: Selectivity 377

CHAPTER 21: Medical Procedures 396

CHAPTER 22: Child Custody 421

CHAPTER 23: Conclusion (and Introduction) 439

Index 445

What People are Saying About This

Andrew Koppelman

Kent Greenawalt is a national treasure. He combines an encyclopedic knowledge of the law with a subtle understanding of the human dimensions of each of the wide range of problems that arise with respect to free exercise rights. This will immediately become the best book in print on the problems presented by religious accommodation.
— Andrew Koppelman, Northwestern University

Larry Sager

The book takes within its gaze an astonishingly rich set of cases, problems, contexts, and variations, reaching well beyond the narrow domain of judicially enforceable constitutional principle to questions of public policy and private behavior.
— Larry Sager, University of Texas

From the Publisher

"The book takes within its gaze an astonishingly rich set of cases, problems, contexts, and variations, reaching well beyond the narrow domain of judicially enforceable constitutional principle to questions of public policy and private behavior."—Larry Sager, University of Texas

"Kent Greenawalt is a national treasure. He combines an encyclopedic knowledge of the law with a subtle understanding of the human dimensions of each of the wide range of problems that arise with respect to free exercise rights. This will immediately become the best book in print on the problems presented by religious accommodation."—Andrew Koppelman, Northwestern University

Editorial Reviews

"Kent Greenawalt argues for taking religion more seriously as a source of meaning in people's lives and accommodating religious freedom to the maximum amount that is consistent with a commitment to fairness."

Law & Social Inquiry

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2006

From the Publisher

[A] comprehensive resource and guide to a wide range of free exercise issues and an incisive reminder of the challenges in interdisciplinary discourse.

Law, Culture and the Humanities - Annika Thiem

Kent Greenawalt is a masterful guide to the range of issues and varied sources concerning free exercise, and teachers and scholars of constitution law will find his book an invaluable resource on free exercise questions.

Law and Politics Book Review - L. Joseph Hebert

[A] comprehensive resource and guide to a wide range of free exercise issues and an incisive reminder of the challenges in interdisciplinary discourse.
— Annika Thiem

Law Culture and the Humanities

Kent Greenawalt's latest masterwork . . . is written with elegance, power, and lucidity—and filled with the kind of wit, wisdom, and Wissenschaft that [his] readers have come to expect.
— John Witte, Jr.

Constitutional Commentary

Kent Greenawalt is a masterful guide to the range of issues and varied sources concerning free exercise, and teachers and scholars of constitution law will find his book an invaluable resource on free exercise questions.
— L. Joseph Hebert

Law and Politics Book Review

Kent Greenawalt's latest masterwork . . . is written with elegance, power, and lucidity—and filled with the kind of wit, wisdom, and Wissenschaft that [his] readers have come to expect.

Constitutional Commentary - John Witte