Life without the First Amendment: Critical Essay

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Life without the First Amendment: Critical Essay

USA will be a guiding basis of my research since the separation of church and state is a legal and political principle that advocates from the First Amendment of the United States Constitution ‘ the separation of church and state fails to be made available in the Constitution itself but trails itself so far back to Thomas Jefferson, an American diplomat, and Founding Father who served at the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists which makes this significant since he stated the ‘First Amendment to the US Constitution created a wall of separation between the church and state’. The use of the ‘wall of separation’ was played out as a metaphor for Courts to dictate strict separation of church and state as seen in Everson v Board of Education 330 U.S. 1. (1947). This was the first case that applied the First Amendment’s establishment clause in which Courts relied upon Jefferson’s metaphor to declare a separation of church and state. The Danbury Baptists played a more significant role since they were fearful of the lack of explicit religious liberty laws in Connecticut’s state constitution. However, since the United States Constitution does not state in many words that there is a separation of church and state, then it makes it more adequate to say the Constitution promotes freedom of religion and prevents the federal government from inhibiting its citizens’ ability to worship as they wish.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution essentially warrants freedom regarding religious expression, freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and the right to petition. The First Amendment prohibits Congress from restricting an individual’s religious practices and the promotion of one religion above all others. An example of how the First Amendment was used was in the case of Prince v. Massachusetts 321 U.S. 158 (1944) in which the Supreme Court upheld a Massachusetts regulation that prohibited girls younger than the age of 18 years and boys younger than the age of 12 years from selling newspapers in the streets and in public places, declaring it was not a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s free exercise of the ‘religion’ clause. Justice Frank W. Murphy proposed the view, without doubt, the activity was a ‘genuine religious, as opposed to a commercial activity ‘. It constituted a ‘genuine religious’ owing to the fact that the nine-year-old child at issue, Betty Simmons, was a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and had been taught the tenets relating to that sect, many of which included the duty of publicly distributing religious tracts from door to door and on the road. In keeping with this religious duty in the company of the appellant, Betty was standing on a public street offering to distribute Jehovah’s Witness tracts to passers-by. This is transparent of there being no pecuniary profit to herself or the appellant since; moreover, the child did this out of her own inclination alongside the appellant’s consent. Religious activity, regardless of whether it is executed by a child or an adult, is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against interference by the state. However, the issue here is were the state child labor laws constitutional? The Supreme Court asserted Prince’s conviction for violating the state child labor laws for involving her child in street preaching. The Court found the State had greater authority to protect children from their actions and treatment and the dangers of preaching on a public road since preaching and selling religious materials were not the primary use of the road. The ruling of this case is evident understand that the state child labor laws were constitutional and that the state’s interest in protecting children through child labor laws overrides the parent’s constitutional right to raise her children and the children’s constitutional right to practice any religion they desire. This emphasizes the importance of neutrality of the state’s individual religious liberty and the avoidance of any semblance of an official state religion.

Regarding the Church of Scientology, the federal government places no restrictions upon its activities as since 1993, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in the United States has formally recognized Scientology as a non-profit for tax purposes. However, there are reasons to question the federal tax exemption of non-profits as the IRS makes no effort to judge the theology of a self-proclaimed church and it is clear they will not try to regulate its membership or leadership. Has the IRS failed to manage and maintain section 501(c) of the Tax Code Act? This is congruent with the First Amendment which means public charities under section 501(c)(3) are subject to severe restrictions on ‘carrying propaganda’ and lobbying. This further means all efforts to faintly affect legislation may not explain for a ‘substantial part’ of the corporation’s operations through section 501(c)(3), exceeding the ‘substantial part’ peak places a corporation in jeopardy of depriving itself of its tax-exempt status. The divergent interests are transparent since religious organizations such as the Church of Scientology withstand any endeavor to restrict political activity as an ‘unconstitutional interference’ with the free exercise of religion whereas extensive political activity by religious organizations has revived the legal as well as the constitutional ultimatum of a strict separation between church and state. For churches and religious organizations, the legal requirements to be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for exempt purposes and none of its earnings may condition to any private shareholder or individual. Section 501(c)(3) organizations are also restricted in how much lobbying, political, and legislative, activities they may conduct.

Fundamentally, the results suggest the Church is a non-profit organization but not a religion. Legal recognition becomes paramount when discussing tax exemption, especially in the Wiccan community to prevent ‘tax discrimination’ but also the question of tax exemption in the community for services, goods, and entitlement since without tax exemption this leads to a huge council tax bill on buildings amongst the community for worship and practices.

Dettmer v Landon 799 F.2d 929 is a prolific court case in the Wiccan community in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that even though Wicca is a recognized religion in the eyes of the US law with the support of the First Amendment, it does not violate the First Amendment to strip a prisoner of its rights to practice the religion. Wicca is entitled to the First Amendment protection just as any other religion should be. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia expressed itself in favor of Dettmer; culminating Wicca was a religion whilst repudiating the position proposed by the Department of Correction that it was merely a ‘conglomeration’ of occult practices. In comparison with Prince, Dettmer shows that religious observances do not need to be uniform to merit the protection of the First Amendment as the Supreme Court recognized differing beliefs and practices are not ‘uncommon among followers of a particular creed ‘. This further advances on the take on prevention of state intervention as ‘Courts are not arbiters of scriptural interpretation ‘ which is directly similar to the Jehovah’s Witness religious tracts. The Church of Wicca’s doctrines teach ceremonies that are parallel to those of recognized religions the Church worship both individually and corporately such as in corporate acts of confessions and ritual acts which enrich the individual’s own worship, promising corporate inclusive worship and essentially expand on their practices are alongside recognized religions rather than reducing the Church of Wicca as just a mixture of the occult.

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