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Religious Group Autonomy: Further Reflections about what is at Stake

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Kathleen A. Brady
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Does the First Amendment afford religious organizations special protection when government regulation interferes with their internal activities or affairs? Nearly all scholars would agree that relief is appropriate where government regulation is designed to impede a group's religious mission or otherwise unfairly discriminate against religion, but such cases are rare. The more difficult cases involve neutral, generally applicable laws that are not intended to burden the internal operations of religious groups but, nevertheless, have that effect. Does the First Amendment provide any relief in such situations and, if so, what is the justification for this protection?

In Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not excuse individuals from compliance with neutral, generally applicable laws that burden religious practice. Legislatures may choose to grant relief in such situations, but if they choose not to do so, the First Amendment does not require any special accommodations or exemptions. However, Smith did not address protections for religious groups, and, indeed, the Court has never directly addressed the scope of First Amendment protections where neutral government regulation interferes with the internal operations of religious organizations. Scholars who have debated this question have advocated a variety of positions.

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Articles
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Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , 2006 , pp. 153 - 213
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Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 2006

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References

1. The Supreme Court has also held that intentional discrimination against religion is unconstitutional. Such discrimination violates the Free Exercise Clause. See Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 532-533 (1993).

2. Empl. Div., Dept. Human Resources of Or. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990).

3. Id. at 878-879.

4. Id. at 890.

5. The Court has addressed claims for tax exemptions, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries v. Bd. of Equalization, 493 U.S. 378 (1990); Bob Jones U. v. U.S., 461 U.S. 574 (1983), but these cases did not involve direct interference with internal group affairs.

6. See e.g. Hamilton, Marci A., Religious Institutions, the No-Harm Doctrine, and the Public Good, 2004 BYU L. Rev. 1099, 1108-1110, 1115Google Scholar; see also Lupu, Ira C., Free Exercise Exemption and Religious Institutions: The Case of Employment Discrimination, 67 B.U. L. Rev. 391, 395, 399, 431 (1987) (arguing for a similar view prior to the Court's decision in Smith)Google Scholar.

7. See e.g. Marshall, William P. & Blomgren, Douglas C., Regulating Religious Organizations Under the Establishment Clause, 47 Ohio St. L.J. 293, 327 (1986)Google Scholar (arguing that protections for religious organizations are only appropriate where government regulation interferes with religious practices or conflicts with matters of church doctrine); see also Bagni, Bruce N., Discrimination in the Name of the Lord: A Critical Evaluation of Discrimination by Religious Organizations, 79 Colum. L. Rev. 1514, 1539 (1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (arguing that “the government must refrain from regulating those activities and relationships within a church that can be termed purely spiritual or integral facets of the actual practice of the religion”); Esbeck, Carl H., The Establishment Clause as a Structural Restraint on Governmental Power, 84 Iowa L. Rev. 1, 77, 109 (1998)Google Scholar (arguing that government has no jurisdiction over “inherently religious” aspects of organizational life and governance); Lupu, Ira C. & Tuttle, Robert, The Distinctive Place of Religious Entities in Our Constitutional Order, 47 Vili. L. Rev. 37, 83-84, 92 (2002)Google Scholar (arguing that group practices “bound up with the sacred” are beyond the competence and jurisdiction of government).

8. See Laycock, Douglas, Towards a General Theory of the Religion Clauses: The Case of Church Labor Relations and the Right to Church Autonomy, 81 Colum. L. Rev. 1373, 1373, 1398 (1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. See Esbeck, supra n. 7, at 77-81, 109; Lupu, Ira C. & Tuttle, Robert W., Sexual Misconduct and Ecclesiastical Immunity, 2004 BYU L. Rev. 1789, 1796, 1815Google Scholar; Lupu & Tuttle, supra n. 7, at 83-84, 92. For further discussion of this position, see Brady, Kathleen A., Religious Organizations and Free Exercise: The Surprising Lessons of Smith, 2004 BYU L. Rev. 1633, 1668–1669Google Scholar.

10. See Brady, supra n. 9, at 1672; Gedicks, Frederick Mark, Toward a Constitutional Jurisprudence of Religious Group Rights, 1989 Wis. L. Rev. 99, 158–159Google Scholar; Laycock, supra n. 8, at 1373, 1392.

11. See McConnell, Michael W., Accommodation of Religion, 1985 S. Ct. Rev. 1, 15–16Google Scholar.

12. See Laycock, Douglas, Religious Liberty as Liberty, 7 J. Contemp. Leg. Issues 313, 317 (1996)Google Scholar.

13. See id.

14. See infra nn. 36-42 and accompanying text.

15. Smith, 494 U.S. at 877.

16. See Brady, supra n. 9, at 1674.

17. See id.

18. See id. at 1674-1675.

19. Id. at 1674-1677, 1703-1706.

20. Id. at 1703-1706; Brady, Kathleen A., Religious Organizations and Mandatory Collective Bargaining Under Federal and State Labor Laws: Freedom From and Freedom For, 49 Vili. L. Rev. 77, 156–158 (2004)Google Scholar.

21. Brady, supra n. 9, at 1700-1706.

22. Id. at 1675-1677.

23. Id. at 1675-1676.

24. Id.

25. Id. at 1676.

26. See id.

27. See id.

28. Id.

29. Id.

30. Id.

31. Id.

32. Id.

33. See Brady, supra n. 9, at 1679-1698; Brady, supra n. 20, at 1041-1047.

34. Brady, supra n. 9, at 1680-1689.

35. Id. at 1698.

36. See Hall, Timothy L., Religion and Civic Virtue: A Justification of Free Exercise, 67 Tul. L. Rev. 87, 121, 123-125, 131–133 (1992)Google Scholar.

37. See Garvey, John H., What Are Freedoms For? 153 (Harv. U. Press 1996) [hereinafter Garvey, Freedoms]Google Scholar; Esbeck, supra n. 7, at 67; Garnett, Richard W., The Story of Henry Adams's Soul: Education and the Expression of Associations, 85 Minn. L. Rev. 1841, 1853 (2001)Google Scholar; Garvey, John H., Churches and the Free Exercise of Religion, 4 Notre Dame J.L. Ethics & Pub. Policy 567, 588 (1990)Google Scholar; Lupu & Tuttle, supra n. 7, at 84, 87.

38. See Vischer, Robert K., The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Rethinking the Value of Associations, 79 Notre Dame L. Rev. 949, 959–960 (2004)Google Scholar.

39. See Gedicks, supra n. 10, at 116; see also Rosenblum, Nancy L., Membership & Morals: The Personal Uses of Pluralism in America 3, 5 (Princeton U. Press 1998)Google Scholar (discussing voluntary associations more broadly); Tamir, Yael, Revisiting the Civic Sphere, in Freedom of Association 214, 215, 232 (Gutmann, Amy ed., Princeton U. Press 1998) (same)Google Scholar.

40. See Garet, Ronald R., Communality and Existence: The Rights of Groups, 56 S. Cal. L. Rev. 1001, 1072–1075 (1983)Google Scholar; see also Galston, William A., Civil Society, Civic Virtue, and Liberal Democracy, 75 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 603, 604 (2000) (discussing voluntary associations more generally)Google Scholar; Tamir, supra n. 39, at 215, 232 (same).

41. See Berger, Peter L. & Neuhaus, Richard John, To Empower People: From State to Civil Society 187 (Novak, Michael ed., 2d ed., AEI Press 1996)Google Scholar; see also Galston, supra n. 40, at 604 (arguing that voluntary associations, including religious groups, “offer opportunities for groups of citizens to conduct important public work through collective mechanisms outside the control of government.”); cf. Smith, Rodney K., The Role of Religion in Progressive Constitutionalism, 4 Widener L. Symposium J. 51, 84 (1999) (discussing the other-directed nature of many religious acts)Google Scholar.

42. See Garvey, Freedoms, supra n. 37, at 153; cf. Laycock, Douglas, Freedom of Speech that is Both Religious and Political, 29 U. Cal. Davis L. Rev. 793, 801–803 (1996)Google Scholar (discussing this positive role of religion); McConnell, Michael W., Five Reasons to Reject the Claim that Religious Arguments Should be Excluded from Democratic Deliberation, 1999 Utah L. Rev. 639, 647 (same)Google Scholar.

43. See Hamilton, supra n. 6, at 1173 (“Professor Brady argues that church autonomy is necessary because churches provide important benefits to society.”); Underkuffler, Laura S., Thoughts on Smith and Religious-Group Autonomy, 2004 BYU L. Rev. 1773, 1786Google Scholar (“With the religious strife and oppression that currently engulfs vast parts of the world, the view that religious groups should simply be left alone to do good works seems alarmingly inadequate.”) (commenting on Brady, supra n. 9).

44. Hamilton, supra n. 6, at 1174.

45. Id. at 1107.

46. For example, Hamilton points to the centuries of religious prosecution in Europe that informed the thinking of the founding generation. Hamilton, Marci A., God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law 6 (Cambridge U. Press 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hamilton, supra n. 6, at 1149.

47. Hamilton, supra n. 6, at 1216.

48. See Underkuffler, supra n. 43, at 1784-1785.

49. Id. at 1785.

50. Id. at 1783.

51. Id.; see also Gedicks, supra n. 10, at 117 (noting that groups are “capable of imposing their own forms of repression on individuals” through “the manner in which they admit, control, and expel their members”).

52. Underkuffler, supra n. 43, at 1787.

53. Id. at 1786.

54. See Hamilton, supra n. 46, at 8, 275, 298; Hamilton, supra n. 6, at 1174, 1198, 1214-1215.

55. Hamilton, supra n. 46, at 297; Hamilton, supra n. 6, at 1195-1196, 1200, 1215.

56. Hamilton, supra n. 6, at 1200.

57. See Smith, supra n. 41, at 61-64.

58. Cases involving the application of employment discrimination statutes and labor laws are a good illustration. See e.g. Dole v. Shenandoah Baptist Church, 899 F.2d 1389, 1396-1398 (4th Cir. 1990) (holding that teachers at church-operated school are not ministers and finding that application of Equal Pay Act would place only limited burden on school's free exercise rights and be justified by a compelling state interest); EEOC v. Fremont Christian Sch., 781 F.2d 1362, 1368-1370 (9th Cir. 1986) (holding that employees at religious school are not ministers and that application of Title VII and Equal Pay Act would not substantially impact school's religious beliefs and practices and would be justified by government's compelling interest in eliminating employment discrimination); EEOC v. Miss. College, 626 F.2d 477, 485, 488-489 (5th Cir. 1980) (holding that faculty members at Christian college are not ministers and that government's compelling state interest in eradicating discrimination outweighs the minimal impact of Title VII on the college's free exercise of religion); Cath. High Sch. Assn. Archdiocese of N.Y. v. Culvert, 753 F.2d 1161, 1170-1171 (2d Cir. 1985) (finding that application of the New York State Labor Relations Act to lay teachers at religiously-affiliated high schools places only indirect and incidental burden on schools and burden is justified by compelling state interest in preservation of labor peace and “a sound economic order”); St. Elizabeth Community Hosp. v. NLRB, 708 F.2d 1436, 1442-1443 (9th Cir. 1983) (holding that application of National Labor Relations Act to religiously-affiliated hospital will produce only minimal burden on hospital's religious practice and that government has a compelling interest in promoting labor peace). See also EEOC v. Pacific Press Publg. Assn., 676 F.2d 1272, 1279-1280 (9th Cir. 1982) (finding that application of Title VII's prohibition against gender discrimination to editorial secretary at religious publishing house only minimally impacts group's religious belief and practice and that federal interest is high; liability for retaliatory action substantially impacts religious beliefs, but imposition is justified by compelling state interest). Cf. Bollard v. Cal. Province of Socy. Jesus, 196 F.3d 940, 947-948 (9th Cir. 1999) (applying pre-Smith compelling state interest test and holding that Jesuit novice may bring Title VII sexual harassment claim against Jesuit order because claim does not interfere with group's choice of clergy and danger of interference with religious faith or doctrine is low; state's interest in protecting employees against sexual harassment is also of the “highest priority”); S. Jersey Cath. Sch. Teachers Org. v. St. Teresa infant Jesus Church Elementary Sch., 696 A.2d 709, 721–723 (N.J. 1997)Google Scholar (finding, in case involving teachers at church-operated elementary schools, that state's compelling interest in protecting employees' right to engage in collective bargaining outweighs interference with schools' autonomy); Hill-Murray Fedn. Teachers v. Hill-Murray High Sch., 487 N.W.2d 857, 866–867 (Minn. 1992)Google Scholar (holding that compelling state interest balancing test under state constitution does not prohibit application of state labor statute to lay teachers at religiously-affiliated high school because application results only in minimal interference outweighed by state's compelling interest in the peace and safety of labor relations and in the protection of employees' right to collectively organize).

59. Hamilton, supra n. 6, at 1102 (referring to Brady, supra n. 9).

60. Brady, supra n. 20, at 156, 165.

61. Id. at 106-138, 156.

62. Id. at 158.

63. Brady, supra n. 9, at 1705.

64. Id.

65. Id. at 1706-1711; Brady, supra n. 20, at 163.

66. See supra text accompanying nn. 54-56.

67. See Hamilton, supra n. 6, at 1163-1164.

68. See Paul, Pope John II, Encyclical Letter: Dives In Misericordia ¶ 2, at 9, ¶ 3, at 13, ¶ 8, at 27-29, 15 ¶, at 47 (Daughters of St. Paul 1980)Google Scholar.

69. The believer does not seek to know the divine as it exists in itself but as it exists in relationship to us, or, more precisely, the believer realizes that the fact of our createdness and our openness to the creator means that the divine is essentially relational.

70. When I use the word “church”, I am referring to both Christian and non-Christian communities.

71. See supra nn. 60-62 and accompanying text.

72. Brady, supra n. 20, at 112 (quoting Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965), in Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage 166, ¶ 40, at 189 (O'Brien, David J. & Shannon, Thomas A. eds., Orbis Books 1992))Google Scholar.

73. Brady, supra n. 20, at 112-113.

74. Id. at 106, 138-139.

75. See supra n. 67 and accompanying text.

76. Letter from Dorothy Day to Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York (Mar. 4, 1949) (quoted in Gregory, David L., Dorothy Day, Workers' Rights and Catholic Authenticity, 26 Fordham Urb. L.J. 1371, 1379 (1999)Google Scholar).

77. Madison, James, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, in The Papers of James Madison vol. 8, 295, 299 (Rutland, Robert A. & Rachai, William M.E. eds., U. Chi. Press 1973) (written in 1785)Google Scholar.

78. Underkuffler, supra n. 43, at 1786.

79. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the First Amendment prohibits courts from becoming entangled in religious questions. See Jones v. Wolf, 443 U.S. 595, 602 (1979); Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese for the U.S. & Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 708-710 (1976); Presbyterian Church in the U.S. v. Mary Elizabeth Blue Hull Meml. Presbyterian Church, 393 U.S. 440, 449 (1969).

80. Lower courts that have carved out the familiar “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination statutes have repeatedly recognized the especially “sensitive” nature of the relationship between a church and its minister. See Pacific Press Publg. Assn., 676 F.2d at 1278; Rayburn v. Gen. Conf. Seventh-Day Adventists, 772 F.2d 1164, 1169 (4th Cir. 1985); see also EEOC v. Cath. U. Am., 83 F.3d 455, 465 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (quoting Rayburn); Young v. N. Ill. Conf. United Methodist Church, 21 F.3d 184, 186 (7th Cir. 1994) (same). These courts have also recognized its “quintessentially religious” character. Rayburn, 772 F.2d at 1169 (quoting Milivojevich, 426 U.S. at 720).

81. For a discussion of scholarship advocating this position, see infra text accompanying nn. 177-185.

82. Matt 10:39 (all Biblical citations are taken from the RSV) (“He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.”); Matt 16:25 (“For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”).

83. This is the lesson of Christ's suffering and death on the Cross. See Brady, Kathleen A., Catholic Social Thought and the Public Square: Deconstructing the Demand for Public Accessibility, 1 J. Cath. Soc. Thought 203, 208–210 (2004)Google Scholar.

84. See id.

85. See Brady, supra n. 9, at 1666, n. 212.

86. Id.

87. See supra n. 80 and accompanying text for a discussion of the special sensitivity of the church-minister relationship.

88. Underkuffler, supra n. 43, at 1785.

89. See Noonan, John T. Jr., The Lustre of Our Country: The American Experience of Religious Freedom 251-252, 257–258 (U. Cal. Press 1998)Google Scholar.

90. Brady, supra n. 9, at 1703.

91. Brady, supra n. 83, at 208-210.

92. Noonan, John T. Jr., Persons and Masks of the Law: Cardozo, Holmes, Jefferson, and Wythe as Makers of the Masks xii (Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1976)Google Scholar.

93. Underkuffler, supra n. 43, at 1786.

94. Id. at 1785.

95. Jefferson, Thomas, A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, in The Founders' Constitution vol. 5, 77 (Kurland, Philip B. & Lerner, Ralph eds., U. Chi. Press 1987) (written in 1779)Google Scholar.

96. Underkuffler, supra n. 43, at 1786.

97. While my focus in this article is religious groups, I have also advocated broad autonomy for nonreligious associations under the Free Speech Clause. See Brady, supra n. 9, at 1706-1711.

98. Underkuffler, supra n. 43, at 1783.

99. Id.

100. Id.

101. Id.

102. Id.

103. See id.

104. See id.

105. See id.

106. Id.

107. Abrams v. U.S., 250 U.S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting).

108. Milton, John, Areopagitica, in Areopagitica and of Education 1, 50 (Sabine, George H. ed., Appleton Century Crofts 1951) (written in 1644)Google Scholar.

109. Jefferson, supra n. 95, at 77.

110. Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on the State of Virginia 160 (Peden, William ed., U. N.C. Press 1982) (written in 1787)Google Scholar.

111. See Garvey, Freedoms, supra n. 37, at 66; Ingber, Stanley, The Marketplace of Ideas: A Legitimizing Myth, 1984 Duke L.J. 1, 5–8Google Scholar; Marshall, William P., In Defense of the Search for Truth as a First Amendment Justification, 30 Ga. L. Rev. 1, 2 (1995)Google Scholar; Smith, Steven D., Believing Persons, Personal Believings: The Neglected Center of the First Amendment, 2002 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1233, 1246–1247, n. 58Google Scholar; Smith, Steven D., Skepticism, Tolerance, and Truth in the Theory of Free Expression, 60 S. Cal. L. Rev. 649, 667-668, 730 (1987)Google Scholar [hereinafter Smith, Skepticism, Tolerance].

112. See Smith, Skepticism, Tolerance, supra n. 111, at 711.

113. See Smolla, Rodney A., Free Speech in an Open Society 7 (Knopf, Alfred A. 1992)Google Scholar; Ingber, supra n. 111, at 35; Smith, Skepticism, Tolerance, supra n. 111, at 711.

114. See Ingber, supra n. 111, at 5, 15, 35.

115. Smolla, supra n. 113, at 7.

116. See Smolla, supra n. 113, at 6; Greenawalt, Kent, Free Speech Justifications, 89 Colum. L. Rev. 119, 134 (1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ingber, supra n. 111, at 5.

117. Smolla, supra n. 113, at 6.

118. See id.; Ingber, supra n. 111, at 5.

119. See Greenawalt, supra n. 116, at 134.

120. See Ingber, supra n. 111, at 28, 30.

121. See Smolla, supra n. 113, at 6 (“The marketplace of ideas rationale is also ostensibly contradicted by our everyday experience.”); Smith, , Skepticism, Tolerance, supra n. 111, at 667–668Google Scholar (“[W]e have lived through too much to believe it.”) (quoting Bickel, Alexander, The Morality of Consent 71 (1975)Google Scholar).

122. See Smolla, supra n. 113, at 6 (noting that “[t]here are … many shoddy ideas circulating”); see also Garvey, Freedoms, supra n. 37, at 66 (observing that “it is too easy to come up with counterexamples”).

123. See Smolla, supra n. 113, at 6.

124. See Ingber, supra n. 111, at 25.

125. Ingber, supra n. 111, at 48.

126. Jefferson, supra n. 95, at 77.

127. Locke, John, A Letter Concerning Toleration 18 (Romanell, Patrick ed., 2d ed. Bobbs-Merrill 1955) (written in 1689)Google Scholar.

128. Id. at 19.

129. Milton, supra n. 108.

130. Abrams, 250 U.S. at 630.

131. Id.

132. See Gaudium et Spes, supra n. 72, at ¶ 22, at 178 (“The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light …. Christ … by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and his love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear.”); id. at 179 (“Through Christ and in Christ, the riddles of sorrow and death grow meaningful.”).

133. 1 Cor 1:22-24 (“For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block [skandalön] to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”).

134. Phil 2:1-8:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any incentive of love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

135. See Augustine, Saint, Confessions 3 (Chadwick, Henry ed., Oxford U. Press 1991)Google Scholar (observing that “you have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until it rests in you”) (written between 397-400).

136. Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty 46 (Spitz, David ed., W.W. Norton & Co. 1975) (written in 1859)Google Scholar.

137. Id. at 43.

138. See Gutmann, Amy & Thompson, Dennis, Democracy and Disagreement 92–93 (Belknap Press 1996)Google Scholar; Macedo, Stephen, Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy 166–169 (Harv. U. Press 2000)Google Scholar; Rawls, John, Political Liberalism 224-225, 243 (Colum. U. Press 1993)Google Scholar.

139. Rawls develops his theory of “political liberalism” in Rawls, supra n. 138.

140. See id. at 10, 135.

141. See id. at 36, 136.

142. Id. at xxiv; see also id. at xvi, 3-4, 36-37; Rawls, John, The Idea of Public Reason Revisited, 64 U. Chi. L. Rev. 765, 766 (1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

143. See Rawls, supra n. 138, at 44, 135; Rawls, supra n. 142, at 766.

144. See Rawls, supra n. 138, at 38, 137, 139-140,217.

145. Id. at 10-11, 38, 97, 140.

146. See id. at 13-14, 43.

147. Id. at 223-227, 43, 66-67, 100-101, 137; Rawls, supra n. 142, at 773-775. Rawls refers to the conception of justice he proposes as “justice as fairness.” Rawls, supra n. 138, at 226. Together, the different political conceptions of justice that citizens articulate constitute a “family” of such conceptions. Id. at 43; Rawls, supra n. 142, at 773-774.

148. See Rawls, supra n. 138, at 223-227; Rawls, supra n. 142, at 773-776.

149. See Rawls, supra n. 142, at 776.

150. Id.

151. See Rawls, supra n. 138, at 217-218; Rawls, supra n. 142, at 768-769, 770-771.

152. See Rawls, supra n. 138, at 137, 139-140, 217; Rawls, supra n. 142, at 771. Some of Rawls's followers extend the requirement of public reason beyond fundamental political questions (or, in Rawls's words, “constitutional essentials” and “matters of basic justice,” Rawls, supra n. 142, at 767) to political discussion and decision making more broadly. See e.g. Gutmann & Thompson, supra n. 138, at 85 n. 44, 14, 52-53, 55; Macedo, supra n. 138, at 169, 172-173.

153. Rawls, supra n. 138, at 152.

154. See id. at 98.

155. Id. at xxvii-xxviii.

156. See id. at xix-xx, 63, 94, 150.

157. See id. at 94.

158. See id. at 150.

159. Id. at 243; see also id. at 42-43 (“A zeal for the whole truth tempts us to a broader and deeper unity that cannot be justified by public reason.”).

160. See id. at 10-11, 12, 134, 140, 168-171.

161. See id. at 9, 144.

162. Id. at 139.

163. See id. at 139-140, 157.

164. See id. at 138-139; 209.

165. Id. at 157; see also id. at 199-200.

166. See id. at 199-200.

167. Id. at 209.

168. Id. at 195.

169. See Rawls, supra n. 142, at 789.

170. See id.

171. See Rawls, supra n. 138, at 193.

172. Rawls, supra n. 142, at 789; see also id. at 791 (stating that “the principles of justice still put essential restrictions on the family and all other associations”).

173. See Rawls, supra n. 138, at 140, 156-157.

174. See id. at 150 (“[W]e turn … to the fundamental ideas we seem to share through the public political culture.”).

175. See id. at 49-50; Rawls, supra n. 142, at 770.

176. See Rawls, supra n. 138, at 209.

177. See e.g. Macedo, supra n. 138, at 108, 134-135; Gutmann, Amy, Freedom of Association: An Introductory Essay, in Freedom of Association 3, 18 (Gutmann, Amy ed., Princeton U. Press 1998)Google Scholar.

178. See e.g., Macedo, Stephen, The Constitution, Civic Virtue, and Civil Society: Social Capital as Substantive Morality, 69 Fordham L. Rev. 1573, 1573–1574 (2001)Google Scholar; see also Rosenblum, supra n. 39, at 40-41 (discussing this view); Tamir, supra n. 39, at 220-222 (same).

179. Macedo, supra n. 138, at 137, 151.

180. Macedo, Stephen, Constituting Civil Society: School Vouchers, Religious Nonprofit Organizations, and Liberal Public Values, 75 Chi.-Kent L. Rev. 417, 440 (2000)Google Scholar.

181. Id. at 441.

182. Macedo, supra n. 138, at 137-138; Macedo, supra n. 180, at 422; see also Rosenblum, supra n. 39, at 40-41 (discussing the views of those who favor using government power to shape civil society institutions according to public democratic values).

183. See Macedo, supra n. 180, at 432, 440-442; Macedo, supra n. 178, at 1591-1593.

184. See Rosenblum, supra n. 39, at 41.

185. Id. at 10.

186. See Rawls, supra n. 138, at xxiv, 77-78, 139, 224.

187. See e.g. The Declaration of Independence1 (1776)Google Scholar (referring to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God”); Madison, James, No. 43, in Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James & Jay, John, The Federalist Papers 271, 279 (Clinton Rossiter ed., New Am. Lib. 1961)Google Scholar (referring to “the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God”).

188. See Jefferson, supra n. 110, at 159 (“The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God.”); Madison, supra n. 77, at 299 (arguing that free exercise is an inalienable right because “what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator.”).

189. See Noonan, supra n. 89, at 249-252, 256-260.

190. For a discussion of the Social Gospel movement, see Ahlstrom, Sydney E., A Religious History of the American People 785–804 (Yale U. Press 1972)Google Scholar.

191. de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America vol. 1, 316 (Bradley, Phillips ed., Reeve, Henry & Bowen, Francis trans., Vintage Books 1945) (written in 1835)Google Scholar.

192. Id. at 317.

193. Rawls, supra n. 138, at xxiii.

194. Id. at xxvi.

195. See id. at xxiii-xxiv.

196. See id. at xxiv-xxv.

197. Id. at xxv.

198. Id.

199. See Milton, supra n. 108, at 5, 41-43.

200. See Locke, supra n. 127, at 13-16; see also Milton, supra n. 108, at 45:

A little generous prudence, a little forbearance of one another, and some grain of charity might win all these diligences to join and unite in one general and brotherly search after truth, could we but forego this prelatical tradition of crowding free consciences and Christian liberties into canons and precepts of men.

201. See Locke, supra n. 127, at 18; see also Milton, supra n. 108, at 37 (“A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believes things only because his pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.”).

202. Madison, supra n. 77, at 299.

203. Jefferson, supra n. 110, at 159.

204. Id.

205. See Milton, supra n. 108, at 53 (arguing that suppression of dissenting viewpoints “is the chief cause why sects and schisms do so much abound, and true knowledge is kept at distance from us”); Jefferson, supra n. 95, at 77 (arguing that “truth is great and will prevail if left to herself”).

206. Stirred by the vast inequalities of wealth, labor problems and poverty experienced in America in the Gilded Age, those active in the Social Gospel movement contributed to the reforms of the progressive era. See Ahlstrom, supra n. 190, at 786-787, 804.

207. I have borrowed this phrase from Sidney Mead, who borrowed it from G.K. Chesterton. See Mead, Sidney E., The Nation with the Soul of a Church 48 (Harper & Row 1975)Google Scholar.

208. Milton, supra n. 108, at 42.

209. Rawls, supra n. 138, at 44.

210. Id. at 4.

211. Id. at 3; Rawls, supra n. 142, at 766.

212. Rawls, supra n. 138, at xxviii.

213. Rawls, supra n. 142, at 766.

214. See id. at 803.

215. Rawls, supra n. 138, at 55.

216. See id. at 56-57.

217. Id. at xxiii.

218. Rawls makes numerous comments which suggest that this is, in his view, a realistic threat. For example, Rawls asks, “[H]ow can we affirm our comprehensive doctrine and yet hold that it would not be reasonable to use state power to gain everyone's allegiance to it?” Id. at 139. In response, Rawls points to the importance of strictly political values to ensuring fair, stable and legitimate government, and he argues that it is up to citizens to settle how their comprehensive views are positively related to the values of the political. See id. at 139-140. However, for many of America's religious traditions, including Christianity, Rawls's question betrays his ignorance of how their comprehensive beliefs work. It is their comprehensive doctrines that prohibit the use of repression and force and demand freedom. These doctrines do not have naturally imperialistic tendencies; quite the opposite. For additional evidence of Rawls's fears, see id. at 63 (referring to the “historical experience” of “centuries of conflict about religious, philosophical, and moral beliefs” where comprehensive doctrines have sought political control).

219. Recent elections in the Middle East bear this out. See Slackman, Michael, Victory is Seen for Hard-Liner in Iranian Vote, N.Y. Times A1 (06 25, 2005)Google Scholar; MacFarquhar, Neil, Will Politics and Success at the Polls Tame Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood?, N.Y. Times A18 (12 8, 2005)Google Scholar; Erlanger, Steven, Hamas Routs Puling Faction, Casting Pall on Peace Process, N.Y. Times A1 (01 27, 2006)Google Scholar.

220. See Rorty, Richard, Solidarity or Objectivity?, 6 Nanzan R. Am. Stud. 1, 15 (1984)Google Scholar.

221. See Stout, Jeffrey, Democracy and Tradition 266–269 (Princeton U. Press 2004)Google Scholar.

222. See Rorty, supra n. 220, at 4 (arguing that “there is nothing to be said about either truth or rationality apart from descriptions of the familiar procedures of justification which a given society—ours—uses in one or another area of inquiry”); Stout, Jeffrey, Ethics After Babel: The Languages of Morals and their Discontents 23, 23–24 (Beacon Press 1988)Google Scholar (“You can't somehow leap out of culture and history altogether and gaze directly into the Moral Law, using it as a standard forjudging the justification or truth of moral propositions, any more than you can gaze directly into the mind of God.”).

223. See Stout, supra n. 222, at 23-24; see also id. at 72 (“Moral philosophy is not practiced from the vantage point of omniscience, above history. It begins, for any of us, at some particular site, where some moral languages are in use.”).

224. See id. at 22-24.

225. See Rorty, supra n. 220, at 9.

226. See Stout, supra n. 221, at 247-248; Stout, supra n. 222, at 72-75, 77; Rorty, supra n. 220, at 14-15; Rorty, Richard, Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism, 80 J. Phil. 583, 586–587 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

227. See Stout, supra n. 222, at 24; Rorty, supra n. 220, at 4, 7; Rorty, supra n. 226, at 586-589.

228. See Ingber, supra n. 111, at 15, 25-26.

229. Rorty, supra n. 220, at 12.

230. Id. at 11.

231. Waldron, Jeremy, Religious Contributions in Public Deliberation, 30 S.D. L. Rev. 817, 825 (1993)Google Scholar (describing relativism of modern philosophy).

232. Stout, supra n. 222, at 23-24.

233. Dworkin, Ronald, Law's Empire 81 (Belknap Press 1986)Google Scholar; see also Stout, supra n. 221, at 255-256 (stating that “[t]ruth-talk is not an implicitly metaphysical affair”); Dworkin, Ronald, Objectivity and Truth: You'd Better Believe It, 25 Phil. & Pub. Afif. 87, 97-99, 103, 105, 108 (1996)Google Scholar.

234. See Rorty, supra n. 220, at 11-12; Rorty, supra n. 226, at 586-587.

235. See Dworkin, supra n. 233, at 127-128.

236. See Stout, supra n. 221, at 252-256; Stout, supra n. 222, at 77; Dworkin, supra n. 233, at 127-128.

237. See Dworkin, supra n. 233, at 127-128, 108.

238. Rorty, supra n. 220, at 8.

239. Stout, supra n. 222, at 23.

240. Rorty, supra n. 220, at 10 (arguing that the appropriate metaphor is “making” rather than “finding”).

241. See Hume, David, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion 44–45 (Popkin, Richard H. ed., Hackett Publg. Co. 1980) (written in 1777)Google Scholar.

242. See Ahlstrom, supra n. 190, at 354 (noting that “churchmen all over the world trembled when they faced what they regarded as the ‘skeptical’ implications of David Hume …, particularly his critique of natural theology, the age's great stock in trade”).

243. See supra n. 236-237 and accompanying text.

244. See e.g. Dworkin, supra n. 233, at 92.

245. See id. at 118, 128.

246. See Stout, supra n. 221, at 269; Rorty, supra n. 220, at 11-12; Dworkin, supra n. 233, at 118, 119-120.

247. See Stout, supra n. 221, at 255-256; Stout, supra n. 222, at 71-73.

248. See Brady, supra n. 83, at 222-225.

249. See Noonan, John T. Jr., Posner's Problematics, 111 Harv. L. Rev. 1768, 1775 (1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

250. Matt 7:7-8 (“Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.”).

251. Macedo, supra n. 138, at 1-2.

252. Id. at 2.