The Free Exercise Clause protects an individual's right not only to believe what he or she would like but also to practice it. The clause protects individuals from laws that would expressly inhibit them from engaging in religious practices.
The Supreme Court has interpreted limits to the Free Exercise Clause and allowed the government to legislate against certain religious practices , such as bigamy and peyote use. In the last 30 years especially, the Court has generally adopted a more restrictive view of the protections of the Free Exercise Clause. Some commentators have suggested that the Free Exercise Clause is contradictory with the Establishment Clause because by protecting certain religious practices that the government would otherwise like to prohibit, the Constitution takes stance in favor of and not neutral to religion.
The Bill of Rights only expressly limits the federal government, so until the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment , states were not constitutionally required to adhere to the protections of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Many of the framers of the Constitution were staunch supporters of a federalist system in which each state would have the power to decide for itself how to approach religion.
However, in a number of decisions, the Supreme Court held that because of the Fourteenth Amendment, the protections of religious freedom in the First Amendment are enforceable against state and local governments. For instance, in Cantwell v. The Court ruled that a local ordinance that required a license for religious solicitation violated the Free Exercise Clause. The question is, seen by whom?
What counts as rational, objective and publicly beneficial is not at all self-evident but deeply contested, determined in the cut and thrust of democratic debate and certainly not by the subjective views of individual judges. Religiously inspired political views — such as those driving the US civil rights movement of the s or the Burmese Buddhists today — have as much right to enter that contest as any others.
In this sense law can quite legitimately be influenced by religion. Laws' other claim is that religious belief is, for all except the holder, "incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence", and that the truth of it "lies only in the heart of the believer". But many non-Christians, for example, recognise that at least some of the claims of Christianity — historical ones, no doubt, or claims about universal moral values — are capable of successful communication to and critical assessment by others.
Laws' assertion is also inconsistent with his own Anglican tradition, in which authority has never been seen as based on the subjective opinions of the individual but rather on the claims of "scripture, tradition and reason" acting in concert. By relying on a dated epistemology, itself the product of the very kind of secularist "belief system" he claims has no place in the justification of law, Laws has obscured the proper relationship between religion and law.
But they would have to show they have a very good reason under the law to stop you from wearing the necklace. If someone is stopping you from practising your religion, it might also be discrimination under the Equality Act You can:. Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer. Top links Housing benefit. Top links Template letter to raise a grievance at work.
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