Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T05:16:16.934Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Two Concepts of Religious Liberty: The Natural Rights and Moral Autonomy Approaches to the Free Exercise of Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2016

VINCENT PHILLIP MUÑOZ
VINCENT PHILLIP MUÑOZ*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
*
Vincent Phillip Muñoz is Tocqueville Associate Professor of Political Science & Concurrent Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame, 217 O'Shaughnessy Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556 (vmunoz@nd.edu).
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Due in part to the influence of Michael McConnell, free exercise exemptionism is generally thought to be compatible with, if not dictated by, the founders’ church-state political philosophy. This article rejects that position, arguing instead that America's constitutional tradition offers two distinct conceptions of religious liberty: the founders’ natural rights free exercise and modern moral autonomy exemptionism. The article aims to distinguish these two approaches by clarifying how they are grounded upon divergent philosophical understandings of human freedom and by explaining how they advance different views of what religious liberty is, how it is threatened, and, accordingly, how it is best protected. The article also attempts to demonstrate how our modern approach expands the protection for religious liberty in some ways but limits it in others.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 110 , Issue 2 , May 2016 , pp. 369 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Annals of the Congress of the United States, 1789–1834 . 1834–56. 42 vols. Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton.Google Scholar
Banning, Lance. 1995. The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores . 2014. 573 U.S.Google Scholar
Bradley, Gerald V. 1991. “Beguiled: Free Exercise Exemptionism and the Siren Song of Liberalism.” Hofstra Law Review 20: 245–319.Google Scholar
Braunfeld v. Brown . 1961. 366 U.S. 599.Google Scholar
Brutus. [1787] 2001. “NO. 2” In The Founders’ Constitution, eds. Kurland, Philip B. and Lerner, Ralph. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
City of Boerne v. Flores . 1997. 521 U.S. 507.Google Scholar
Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah . 1993. 508 U.S. 520.Google Scholar
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith . 1990. 494 U.S. 872.Google Scholar
Galston, William A. 2002. Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garvey, John H. 1996. “An Anti-Liberal Argument for Religious Freedom,” Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 7: 275–91.Google Scholar
Gaustad, Edwin S., ed. 1993. A Documentary History of Religion in America to the Civil War, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.Google Scholar
Hamburger, Philip. 1992. “A Constitutional Right of Religious Exemptions: An Historical Perspective.” George Washington Law Review 60: 915–48.Google Scholar
Hamburger, Philip. 1993. “Natural Rights, Natural Law, and American Constitutions.” Yale Law Journal 102: 907–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamburger, Philip. 2004. “More is Less.” Virginia Law Review 90: 835–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission . 2012. 565 U.S. ___.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Thomas. 1984. Thomas Jefferson: Writings, ed. Peterson, Merrill D.. New York: The Library of America.Google Scholar
Jones v. Opelika . 1942. 316 U.S. 584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kessler, Sanford. 1983. “Locke's Influence on Jefferson's ‘Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom.’” Journal of Church and State 25 (2): 231–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koppelman, Andrew. 2013. Defending Religious Neutrality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kurland, Philip B., and Lerner, Ralph, eds. 2001. The Founders’ Constitution. 5 vols. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund [originally published: Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1987].Google Scholar
Laycock, Douglas. 1990. “Formal, Substantive, and Disaggregated Neutrality Toward Religion.” DePaul Law Review 39: 993–1022.Google Scholar
Laycock, Douglas. 1996a. “Continuity and Change in the Threat of Religious Liberty: The Reformation Era and the Late Twentieth Century.” Minnesota Law Review 80: 1047–102.Google Scholar
Laycock, Douglas. 1996b. “Religious Liberty as Liberty.” Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 7: 313–56.Google Scholar
Laycock, Douglas. 2007. “Substantive Neutrality Revisited.” West Virginia Law Review 110: 51–88.Google Scholar
Leiter, Brian 2013. Why Tolerate Religion? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Locke, John [1689] 1983. A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. Tully, James H.. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.Google Scholar
Locke, John. [1689] 2010. Two Treatises on Government, ed. Laslett, Peter. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Maclure, Jocelyn, and Taylor, Charles. 2011. Secularism and Freedom of Conscience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madison, James. 1865. Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, 4 vols. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.Google Scholar
Madison, James. 1900. The Writings of James Madison, ed. Hunt, Gaillard. 9 vols. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.Google Scholar
Madison, James. 1981. The Mind of the Founder: Sources of the Political Thought of James Madison, ed. Meyers, Marvin. Rev. ed. Hanover and London: Brandeis University Press.Google Scholar
Madison, James. 1984. The Papers of James Madison. Presidential Series, ed. Stagg, J.C.A. et al. 6 vols. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Harvey C. Jr. 1993. “Responsibility Versus Self-Expression.” In Old Rights and New, ed. Licht, Robert A.. Washington, DC: The AEI Press, 96–111.Google Scholar
McConnell, Michael W. 1990a. “The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion.” Harvard Law Review 103 (7): 1409–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McConnell, Michael W. 1990b. “Free Exercise Revisionism and the Smith Decision.” University of Chicago Law Review 57 (4): 1109–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McConnell, Michael W. 1992. “Accommodation of Religion: An Update and a Response to the Critics.” George Washington Law Review 60: 685–742.Google Scholar
McConnell, Terrance. 2000. Inalienable Rights: The Limits of Consent in Medicine and Law. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, Vincent Phillip. 2008. “The Original Meaning of the Free Exercise Clause: The Evidence from the First Congress.” Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy 31 (3): 1083–120.Google Scholar
Munñoz, Vincent Phillip. 2009. God and the Founders: Madison, Washington, and Jefferson. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, Vincent Phillip. 2015. “Church and State in the Founding-Era States.” American Political Thought 4: 1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NAACP v. Button . 1963. 371 U.S. 415.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2008. Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Poore, Benjamin Perley, ed. 1878. The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and Other Organic Laws of the United States. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Planned Parenthood v. Casey . 1992. 505 U.S. 833.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1993. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Reynolds v. United States . 1879. 98 U.S. 145.Google Scholar
Rienzi, Mark L. 2012. “Religious Liberty 9, President Obama 0,” National Catholic Register, January 12. http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/religious-liberty-9-president-obama-0/ (May 14, 2014).Google Scholar
Rosen, Gary. 1999. American Compact: James Madison and the Problem of Founding. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Sandoz, Ellis, ed. 1990. Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730–1805. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Schwartzman, Micah. 2012. “What If Religion Is Not Special?” University of Chicago Law Review 79: 1351–427.Google Scholar
Seagrave, S. Adam. 2014. The Foundations of Natural Morality: On the Compatibility of Natural Rights and the Natural Law. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherbert v. Verner . 1963. 374 U.S. 398.Google Scholar
Thomas v. Review Board of the Indiana Employment Security Division , 1981. 450 U.S. 707.Google Scholar
Tollefsen, Christopher. 2012. “Conscience, Religion, and the State.” In Challenges to Religious Liberty in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Bradley, Gerard V.. New York: Cambridge University Press, 111–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
United States v. Seeger . 1965. 380 U.S. 163.Google Scholar
Universal Military Training and Service Act. 1948.Google Scholar
Washington, George. 1988. George Washington: A Collection, ed. Allen, William B.. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Weiss, Jillian T. 2010. “The First Amendment Right to Free Exercise of Religion, Nondiscrimination Statutes Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, and the Free Exercise Claims of Non-Church-Related Employees.” Florida Coastal Law Review 12: 15–46.Google Scholar
Welsh v. United States . 1970. 398 U.S. 333.Google Scholar
West, Ellis M. 1993–94. “The Right to Religion-Based Exemptions in Early America: The Case of Conscientious Objectors to Conscription.” Journal of Law and Religion 10 (2): 367–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wisconsin v. Yoder . 1971. 406 U.S. 205.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Christopher. 2012. “Free Exercise, Religious Conscience, and the Common Good.” In Challenges to Religious Liberty in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Bradley, Gerard V.. New York: Cambridge University Press, 93–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.