Ficticious Florida Case/ pro se

[Rev. Joshua Snider]

One love,
Thank you to Brother Michael Wilsman for sharing his assignment and allowing me to post it here. And thank you to Brother Danuel Quaintance for providing the Jaffree quote which seems to have relevance to both the sincerity of the individual verses an established religion and the application of the 1st Amendment to the States by means of the 14th Amendment.
From Michael:
This assignment is for my REL3930 class due this week. Figure this might be relative to our discussion. The book we are using is That Godless Court? By Ronald B. Flowers. Let me know what you think.

1. Trace the development of the First Amendment Jurisprudence regarding the Free Exercise clause. Note the Development but spend the bulk of your time on the current status.

The Constitution of the United States of America through the Bill of Rights through the First Amendment grants every citizen the Freedom of Religion. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof.” This became the law in December of 1791. With the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment by the states after the civil war the First Amendment was incorporated to the states. On of the first cases on free exercise was that of Mormon Polygamy in 1878. The case Reynolds v. United States gave broad powers to the government to regulate the free exercise of religion by rejecting the First Amendment claim on the basis that the practice of polygamy was “odious”. This case also made the distinction between belief and practice. In the 1940 case of Cantwell v. Connecticut there were some very important principles of law set forth. This is the first case that the courts incorporated the Free Exercise clause into the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as to establish Impermissible Prior Restraint and Clear and Present Danger standards giving religious groups more freedom from governmental intrusion. However, when it came to children and their Free Exercise the courts had something else to say as we can see in Prince v. Massachusetts in 1944. The beginning of the compelling interest test came with two court decisions in 1940 and 1943. In Minersville School district v. Gobitis (1940) the court ruled that children had to salute the flag even if they claimed the Free Exercise clause protected their right to object to that action. The court overturned this ruling in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) with the judge writing that the state may not force one to say or express what one does not believe. The forbidden area of theology was solidified by the case in United States v. Ballard (1944) in which Freedom of Thought was absolute to that particular person. The current status of the Free Exercise Clause is uncertainty. How we got there is a different story all together. In the case Sherbert v. Verner (1963) the courts established the compelling interest test in which there had to be a burden on the free exercise of a particular person’s belief. If there was a burden on the individual’s belief the state had to show a compelling interest in prohibiting that action, and if there was a compelling interest then the state had to show it was acting in the least restrictive way possible to further the compelling interest. This test replaced the clear and present danger standard further opening the doors of free exercise. On the issue of whether Amish children were required to attend higher education past the eighth grade the court used the compelling interest test again in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) again broadening the reach of the free exercise clause. The compelling interest test was the standard through the 70s, and 80s and we can see great examples of the test being applied in Thomas v. Review Board of Indiana (1981) dealing with theology, Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals commission of Florida (1987) dealing with converts, and Frazee v. Illinois Department of Employment (1989) dealing with personal religious beliefs. The tables turned however in Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith (1990) when the court abandoned the compelling interest test and used the General Applicability Test dealing a large blow to the Free Exercise clause and possibly setting back decades of work on religious freedom in America. A case from Florida that of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993) was thought by many to be a chance to reverse the Smith decision returning the compelling interest test to the standard and restoring the free exercise clause to its place of authority, but the court applied the Smith decision and because of the circumstance of the laws being broken by the Santeria congregation practicing animal sacrifice the strict scrutiny standard or the compelling interest test was used but only because the laws Hialeah passed would allow secular killing of animals but not animal sacrifice practiced by the church. Prior to this case there were efforts to restore the compelling interest test by many in the form of an Act of Congress. So in response to Smith the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 was signed by President Clinton and restored the compelling interest test but has come under much scrutiny. It was deemed unconstitutional at the state level in the very narrow corridor of land use regulation in case of Boerne v. Flores (1997). In response to Boerne, Congress enacted the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (2000) which in turn restored the compelling interest test by applying it to the areas of land use and institutionalized persons, and also making proper amendments to RFRA to ensure the compelling interest test be protected and used in all cases involving the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.
As is plain from its text, the First Amendment was adopted to curtail the power of Congress to interfere with the individual's freedom to believe, to worship, and to express himself in accordance with the dictates of his own conscience. 32 Until the Fourteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution, the First Amendment's restraints on the exercise of federal power simply did not apply to the States. 33 But when the Constitution was amended to prohibit any State from depriving any person of liberty without due process of law, that Amendment imposed the same substantive limitations on the States' power to legislate that the First Amendment had always imposed on the Congress' power. This Court has confirmed and endorsed this elementary proposition of law time and time again.
WALLACE v. JAFFREE, 472 U.S. 38 (1985) at 49

One love,
Joshua

[Rev. John]

bump

[Rox]

so rev. joshua... is ur case still ongoing? please keep me informed. this is very interesting stuff!

[Rev Sister Lilli]

Originally Posted by Rox

so rev. joshua... is ur case still ongoing? please keep me informed. this is very interesting stuff!

Rox,

You are brand new here. I have taken the time to read both your posts and to me it seems.....

You seem to be skimming over the posts and not really reading them or you WOULD HAVE seen Good Brother Josh's case was fictious. As you can see he GAVE FREELY a lot of HIS time and effort all went into that.

You need to read read read. Research research reasearch!

Maybe ask yourself questions, like, " these people don't even know me, how can I expect them to KEEP ME INFORMED"????

Also Cannabis Spirituality is a better word for it then "stuff" We have "stuff" Cannabis Spirituality is a LIFESTYLE and Also our RELIGION!!!

Have a wonderful journey GLEANING the fields of this forum. ( we all wish we had secretarys) lol

[Rev. Joshua Snider]

Louv friend,

No this is a ficticious case. I live in Michigan and I'm putting together a lawsuit for here. Puting this together was sort of practice for that.

Rev. Michael Wilsman and Rev. Victoria Hablitzel do have a case going down there right now. They went to court yesterday but didn't do anything besides wasting time. The are waiting for a rescheduling date.

One louv,
Joshua

[Rev Sister Lilli]

Brother Josh did so well on this newcomers ought to start on page 1.