To be precise: Heffron said religious speech gets *no* extra constitutional
protection as compared to "other organizations having social, political, or
other ideological messages to proselytize," and to "other social, political, or
charitable organizations." 452 U.S. at 652-53. This is not terribly precise,
but it pointedly excludes commercial speech. Religion gets no extra protection
as compared to other high value speech.
Quoting "Volokh, Eugene" <vol...@law.ucla.edu>:
> I agree with Alan on all these points, but I should also add
> that the one time in the Sherbert/Yorder era that the Court
> considered a free speech claim coupled with a free exercise claim, it
> seemed to conclude that the Free Exercise Clause should be
> interpreted as providing *no* extra protection for religious speech
> -- that was in Heffron v. ISKCON, 452 U.S. 640 (1981).
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-
>> boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Brownstein, Alan
>> Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2009 5:53 PM
>> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
>> Subject: RE: "A Bible study group and a book club are not treated the same"
>>
>> If we had a constitutional regime that confers special protections for non-
>> expressive religious exercise against neutral laws of general
>> applicability, the
>> issue of how to treat expressive religious exercise would require
>> some difficult
>> line drawing and analysis. But since Smith controls the meaning of the free
>> exercise clause, there is no special federal constitutional
>> protection for religious
>> exercise -- whether it is expressive or not. Under this regime a
>> statute that
>> confers special protection for expressive religious exercise is
>> going to confront
>> serious and unavoidable establishment clause and free speech clause issues,
>> isn't it?
>>
>> Alan Brownstein
>> ________________________________________
>> From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu
>> [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu]
>> On Behalf Of Bezanson, Randall P [randy-bezan...@uiowa.edu]
>> Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 9:05 AM
>> To: 'Law & Religion issues for Law Academics'
>> Subject: RE: "A Bible study group and a book club are not treated the same"
>>
>> Let's see ... speech is fully protected, but religious speech is
>> even more fully
>> protected, indeed advantaged.Can that be right? Yes, if the Free Exercise
>> Clause confers special protections for religious speech exercise -- a not
>> implausible theory. Yet I have always thought that the
>> non-establishment clause
>> could justify greater or additional limitations on religious speech.
>> Could both be
>> true? I don't see any reason why not since the two religious
>> clauses are often,
>> though not always, at war with one another because they serve two distinct
>> purposes.
>>
>> Randy Bezanson
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-
>> boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene
>> Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 10:05 AM
>> To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
>> Subject: "A Bible study group and a book club are not treated the same"
>>
>> I haven't read the whole opinion yet, but in my skim I was
>> struck by this line:
>>
>> "The trial court appears to have been troubled that an
>> operation which can
>> be and often is conducted for purely secular purposes could be entitled to
>> increased protection from government regulation if conducted for religious
>> reasons. But TRFRA guarantees such protection. Just as a Bible study group
>> and a book club are not treated the same, neither are a halfway
>> house operated
>> for religious purposes and one that is not. Under Smith, the Free
>> Exercise Clause
>> does not require strict scrutiny for religious activity affected by
>> neutral laws of
>> general application,66 but TRFRA imposes the requirement by statute."
>>
>> Is it clear that it's constitutional, given the Free Speech
>> Clause and the
>> Establishment Clause, and the position of 6 of the votes in Texas Monthly v.
>> Bullock, for the law to treat Bible study groups better than book clubs?
>>
>> Eugene
>>
>>
>>
>> From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-
>> boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Douglas Laycock
>> Sent: Friday, June 19, 2009 7:58 AM
>> To: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
>> Subject: Texas RFRA
>>
>> The Supreme Court of Texas has unanimously given the Texas RFRA its
>> intended meaning to provide real protection for exercises of
>> religion. Barr v. City
>> of Sinton, Link to opinion below. The case involves a religious
>> halfway house in
>> a small town in South Texas. The city made no serious effort to prove a
>> compelling interest in closing the halfway house; its main argument
>> seemed to be
>> that there was no burden because the halfway house could leave town,
>> and that
>> that Texas RFRA should not apply to zoning anyway.
>> Most of the opposition to Texas RFRA was from neighborhood associations
>> worried about land use. The lead sponsor in the House told me that
>> if people got
>> the idea that this meant that black churches could locate in white
>> neighborhoods,
>> the bill would be dead. The compromise was to provide that cities
>> would have no
>> less land use authority than they had had under federal law on March
>> 17, 1990
>> (the day before Smith.) The land use folks claimed that Sherbert
>> and Yoder had
>> never applied to them; the bill's supporters claimed that Sherbert
>> and Yoder had
>> been a generally applicable test that applied to all regulation,
>> including land use
>> regulation. The state supreme court just resolved that argument in
>> favor of the
>> bill's supporters.
>> http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/historical/2009/jun/060074.htm[1]
>>
>> 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[2]
>>
>> 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[3]
>>
>> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed
>> as private.
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>> read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the
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>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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[4]
>>
>> Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed
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>
> _______________________________________________
> 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[5]
>
> 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.
>
>
>
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
Links:
------
[1] http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/historical/2009/jun/060074.htm
[2] http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
[3] http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
[4] http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
[5] http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw
_______________________________________________
To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu
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