I think Doug is right when he writes that "The reality of any religion lies not in formal doctrine but in the social understanding, practices, and lived experience of its faithful," for a lot of reasons, but one of them is this.
Assume that there is a religious practice as to which there some uncertainty as to whether it is formally obligatory, but, in fact, it is treated very seriously and observed by the members of a particular faith. Assume also that the failure of a public university to grant an exemption for this practice from some rule or requirement imposes serious costs on believers. One consequence of the denial of the sought after exemption is that this university will cease to be a viable educational option for members of this faith. I would find it hard to accept the argument that a public university that Mormons, or Jews or Moslems do not attend because of the burdens its requirements impose on their religious practices does not raise a free exercise issue solely because the mandatory nature of the practices in question is disputed. This, by the way, is also one of the reasons I think religious exemptions are distinct from some of the secular grounds for seeking an exemption raised in earlier posts. The denial of religious exemptions impacts an entire community and limits their participation in public institutions. Alan Brownstein -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Douglas Laycock Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 8:05 AM To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu Subject: Recent Threads Some Christians proselytize; some don't. Same with atheists. There is clearly a hostile secular reaction to evangelical activism and political influence; it is visible in our politics and in some of the resistance to free exercise claims, and it shows up statistically in a surge of people reporting no religion in surveys about religious belief. It's not a reaction to the Christian Reconstructionists, who are numerically trivial. But many of the folks having the reaction can't tell the difference between the conservative values voters and the Christian Reconstructionists. The mission is a central religious experience in Mormonism. What Fred Gedicks described is the social understanding of the faith. The reality of any religion lies not in formal doctrine but in the social understanding, practices, and lived experience of its faithful. That smart people on this list can doubt whether the Mormon mission is religious dramatically illustrates what is wrong with the compelled/motivated distinction. I agree -- and have testified -- that the religious motivation must be substantial or primary and not just lurking in the background somewhere. That means the resulting line is one of degree and not a bright line. But to say the Mormon mission is not distinguishable from any other reason for taking a year off is like saying that because 1 isn't much different from 2, and 2 isn't much different from 3, and so on -- that 1 is indistinguishable from 100 or a hundred trillion or any other number. Douglas Laycock Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law University of Michigan Law School 625 S. State St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1215 734-647-9713 _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
