Exposé de Valentine, Ludivine et Angélina

Freedom of religion (Part 1)

Introduction

In his book, The two sources of moral and religion published in 1932, Henri Bergson wrote " There has never been a society without religion". That's why, no matter the period, men had always to organize their societies taking in count religions. Indeed, We talk about religion in plural because there can be several ones in one society notably in the countries where the principle of the separation of Church and State was adopted. Besides, this is this principle that developed the idea of freedom of religion. Rules are needed for religions not to be in a kind of competition. Each country tries to set up rules to keep their country peaceful in spite of the diversity of religions. Without those rules, a sort of war of religion could break out. In the USA, the first admendment of the Constitution protects different freedoms but especially the freedom of religion. It protects it thanks to two principles :The first one is the " Establishment Clause". Governments may not favor any religion over others, and may not favor religion over non-religion. For example, any law giving advantages to a religion or religion in general will generally be considered unconstituional. So, this principle guarantees freedom but also equality between religions. The second principle is found in the "Free exercice Clause". It is generally understood to mean that one is allowed to believe in any set of beliefs that one wishes, no matter how outrageous the belief seem to others. Now, several questions can be asked. What importance does freedom of religion have in the United States of America? How is it managed? In a first part, we'll see that this principle is constitutionally guaranteed before studying, in a second part, the actual failure of the application of this principle.

I A principle recognized in the Constitution of the United States

It is common to say that the USA is the country of freedom, we say that particularly thanks to their first admendment what's the position of the Supreme Court ? (A) This first admendment directly results from the American culture but how do they live with this principle ? (B)

A The position of the Supreme Court : How does it apply this first admendment that hallows the principle of freedom ?

In the lawsuit of 2006 named Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao Do Vegetal, the Supreme Court judged that members from a Christian sect could be allowed to drink halluninogenic tea, the hoasca, because it was part of their brazilian practices. This lawsuit is quite striking because in 1990, the Supre Court, in another lawsuit named Employment Div. Dept. of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, it had decided to forbid ameadians to use peyotl even though that was part of their religious practices. In those lawsuits, the Supreme Court had to interpret the free exercice clause and the establishment clause. The Supreme Court's decisions concerning the freedom of practicing religion had been adopted very differently so far. Indeed, the Supreme Court can have a large or a struct interpretation of the two clauses that constitute the freedom of religion. Through different cases, we can notice an evolution of the Supreme Court's position. For instance, in 1878, there was the famous Reynolds case. A mormon was not allowed to have several wives. Then, the compelling interest test case of 1963 reinforces the sepration between the State and religion. In spite of this, in 1990, an ameradian man is condamned as he consumed peyotl even though it made part of his religious practices. Finally, there was this case of the hallucinogenic tea where the use of this tea was allowed. So, we can notice that the Supreme Court can have different interpretations of the clauses. Actually, it usually tries to make things evolve so that religions can be all practiced in a free and equal way.