Why "watered down" ? More liberty for the insincere doesn't mean less liberty for the committed. It's not as though there's only a finite quantity of liberty to go around.
Or am I missing your point? Does loss of respect for a religious claim affect one's liberty? Although I can see how one might make a speculative argument that it might make it more difficult for society to accept the next claim coming down the pike. Susan Rick Duncan wrote: > Doug makes a great point--the cost of overprotecting questionably > "sincere" claims to free exercise is a general watering down of the > liberty for valid claims. Sounds like a good law review topic to > me--perhaps for a seminar paper or law review comment for a student. > > Cheers, Rick > > Rick Duncan > Welpton Professor of Law > University of Nebraska College of Law > Lincoln, NE 68583-0902 > > > "It's a funny thing about us human beings: not many of us doubt God's > existence and then start sinning. Most of us sin and then start > doubting His existence." --J. Budziszewski (The Revenge of Conscience) > > "Once again the ancient maxim is vindicated, that the perversion of > the best is the worst." -- /Id./ > > > --- On *Fri, 8/1/08, Douglas Laycock /<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>/* wrote: > > From: Douglas Laycock <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: Lack of sincerity > To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu > Date: Friday, August 1, 2008, 1:16 PM > > I think Eugene is dead on about why judges concede sincerity. > What's missing from his analysis is the frequent insincerity of > the finding of sincerity -- and the costs of that practice. > > Nat Lewin, who often represents Orthodox Jewish groups in > religious liberty cases, said this years ago, and he persuaded > me. Judges often say that a plaintiff is sincere, or that the > judge assumes he is sincere, without actually believing that he's > sincere. Then, since an insincere plaintiff should lose, they > make sure he loses on some other ground, usually burden or > compelling interest -- even if they have to interpret those issues > in ways that undermine the whole purpose of the statute or > constitutional provision they claim to be enforcing. And so we > get bad precedents on burden and compelling interest, created for > the insincere plaintiff but applicable to all plaintiffs, sincere > and insincere alilke. > > Of course this is easy to suspect and hard to prove. But I think > it goes on. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > 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.
