Secular court

“ The trial court found the "avowed" purpose of the statute to be secular, even as it labeled the statutory declaration "self-serving." App. to Pet. for Cert. 37. Under this Court's rulings, however, such an "avowed" secular purpose is not sufficient to avoid conflict with the First Amendment. ”

“ In light of the evolution of our Sunday Closing Laws through the centuries, and of their more or less recent emphasis upon secular considerations, it is not difficult to discern that as presently written and administered, most of them, at least, are of a secular rather than of a religious character, and that presently they bear no relationship to establishment of religion as those words are used in the Constitution of the United States. ”

“ But the Court nevertheless holds that the State must prefer a religious over a secular ground for being unavailable for work that state financial support of the appellant's religion is constitutionally required to carry out 'the governmental obligation of neutrality in the face of religious differences * * *.'
Yet in cases decided under the Establishment Clause the Court has decreed otherwise. It has decreed that government must blind itself to the differing religious beliefs and traditions of the people. ”

“ And very often they render unjust decisions. The effect of this is the spread of unbelief among the people, who neglect and dishonor God and the holy church. The glory of God and the honor of the church demand that this abuse be stopped. We will therefore do all we can to have the princes and prelates who have jurisdiction in our land reform their ecclesiastical courts. For these ecclesiastical courts shall refuse to hear secular cases and try only ecclesiastical cases. We forbid all persons in our land to summon, sue, or denounce another on a secular charge before an ecclesiastical court.... ”

“ This case belongs to a class, happily rare in our courts, in which one of the parties to a controversy, essentially ecclesiastical, resorts to the judicial tribunals of the State for the maintenance of rights which the church has refused to acknowledge, or found itself unable to protect. Much as such dissensions among the members of a religious society should be regretted, a regret which is increased when passing from the control of the judicial and legislative bodies of the entire organization to which the society belongs, an appeal is made to the secular authority ”

“ But, again, this is not the case before us because the statute at bar does not make unlawful any religious practices of appellants; the Sunday law simply regulates a secular activity and, as applied to appellants, operates so as to make the practice of their religious beliefs more expensive. Furthermore, the law's effect does not inconvenience all members of the Orthodox Jewish faith but only those who believe it necessary to work on Sunday. ”

“ Under the Lemon analysis, a statute or practice which touches upon religion, if it is to be permissible under the Establishment Clause, must have a secular purpose; it must neither advance nor inhibit religion in its principal or primary effect ”

“ But the manifold character of man's relations may bring his conception of religious duty into conflict with the secular interests of his fellow-men. When does the constitutional guarantee compel exemption from doing what society thinks necessary for the promotion of some great common end, or from a penalty for conduct which appears dangerous to the general good? ”

“ It is the first of these three criteria that is most plainly implicated by this case. As the District Court correctly recognized, no consideration of the second or third criteria is necessary if a statute does not have a clearly secular purpose. [40] For even though a statute that is motivated in part by a religious purpose may satisfy the first criterion, see, e.g., Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 296-303 (1963) (BRENNAN, J., concurring) , the First Amendment requires that a statute must be invalidated if it is entirely motivated by a purpose to advance religion. ”

“ Many preachers, including those in the more traditional and orthodox sects, may not be blessed with congregations or parishes capable of paying them a living wage. A statutory ban on all secular work would mete out draft exemptions with an uneven hand, to the detriment of those who minister to the poor and thus need some secular work in order to survive. ”

“ The accused were to be tried in the episcopal court and such as should be convicted (if they refused to “repent” and acknowledge their errors) were to be handed over to the secular authorities “in order that they may receive the punishment they deserve (animadversio debita) .” This last formula was vague, perhaps intentionally so. All secular magistrates were to take an oath before the bishop that they would enforce the laws against heresy, and those who refused to act after having been duly called upon to do so were to be excommunicated. ”

“ With the growth of the papal power there grew up also a desire among the clergy to liberate the administration of ecclesiastical law from the control of secular courts, and the spirit of Innocent may be discerned in Grosseteste’s argument, that it was sinful for secular judges to determine whether cases belonged to an ecclesiastical or a secular tribunal. The study of the civil and canon laws was eagerly pursued; it was stimulated by the influence of the large number of foreign ecclesiastics, and even common lawyers found in it a scientific basis for their own law. ”

“ The opinion radiates, however, a spirit of freedom for religious organizations, an independence from secular control or manipulation, in short, power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine. Freedom to select the clergy, where no improper methods of choice are proven, [23] we think, must now be said to have federal constitutional protection as a part of the free exercise of religion against state interference. ”

“ I only assert, that they differ in no respect from civil judges; yet they still call it a spiritual jurisdiction, where all the contention is about secular affairs. Though there were no other evil, what effrontery must they have, to call a court full of litigation the judicature of the Church! But, it is alleged, 402it employs admonitions, and pronounces excommunication. Is it thus that they trifle with God? Does a poor man owe a sum of money? ”

“ Allen, 463 U.S. 388, 394—395 (1983) (stressing this Court’s “reluctance to attribute unconstitutional motives to States, particularly when a plausible secular purpose for the State’s program may be discerned from the face of the statute”) . The Court grants no deference to–and appears openly hostile toward–the policy’s stated purposes, and wastes no time in concluding that they are a sham.
For example, the Court dismisses the secular purpose of solemnization by claiming that it “invites and encourages religious messages.” Ante, at 14 ”

“ The churches endeavor to and do hide a great deal of the immorality of their ministers. The preachers, who govern the ecclesiastical tribunals, [40] have a fellow feeling for one another. As a general thing, it is only when the clergy are brought before the secular courts that the public can learn the full facts. Comparatively few Catholic priests figure in this record, for the reason that that church is a close corporation which by political influence and by control of its members’ tongues can conceal the crimes of its leaders. ”

“ Appellants also assert that the statute will operate so as to hinder the Orthodox Jewish faith in gaining new adherents. And the corollary to these arguments is that if the free exercise of appellants' religion is impeded, that religion is being subjected to discriminatory treatment by the State. ”

“ The law knows no heresy, and is committed to the support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect. The right to organize voluntary religious associations to assist in the expression and dissemination of any religious doctrine, and to create tribunals for the decision of controverted questions of faith within the association, and for the ecclesiastical government of all the individual members, congregations, and officers within the general association, is unquestioned. ”

“ That same history showed that many people had lost their respect for any religion that had relied upon the support of government to spread its faith. [14] The Establishment Clause [p432] thus stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its "unhallowed perversion" by a civil magistrate. [15] Another purpose of the Establishment Clause rested upon an awareness of the historical fact that governmentally established religions and religious persecutions go hand in hand. ”

“ Some 'released time' classes are under separate denominational auspices, others are conducted jointly by several denominations, often embracing all the religious affiliations of a community. Some classes in religion teach a limited sectarianism; others emphasize democracy, unity and spiritual values not anchored in a particular creed. Insofar as these are manifestations merely of the free exercise of religion, they are quite outside the scope of judicial concern, except insofar as the Court may be called upon to protect the right of religious freedom. ”

“ Appeals are of divine and natural right, and certainly very necessary in every society, because of the iniquity and ignorance of judges. That they are so, the practices of all ages and nations sufficiently testify.
Argum. II. The Jewish church government affords a second argument. If in that they had synagogues in every city, which were subordinate to the supreme ecclesiastical court at Jerusalem, then there ought to be a subordination of particular churches among us to higher assemblies ”

“ Familiars holding office are not to be defended for official frauds or malfeasance, but the secular authorities are to be freely allowed to administer justice.
Inquisitors shall not give safe-conducts to persons outlawed or banished by the royal judges, except in cases of faith and then only for the time necessary to appear before them.
When any official or familiar, in criminal or civil cases not of faith, has consented tacitly or explicitly to the secular jurisdiction or has pleaded clergy, the inquisitors shall not protect him nor inhibit the secular judges. ”

“ However free the exercise of religion may be, it must be subordinate to the criminal laws of the country, passed with reference to actions regarded by general consent as properly the subjects of punitive legislantion. There have been sects which denied as a part of their religious tenets that there should be any marriage tie, and advocated promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, as prompted by the passions of its members. ”

“ That certain, but by no means all, religious groups condemn the behavior at issue gives the State no license to impose their judgments on the entire citizenry. The legitimacy of secular legislation depends instead on whether the State can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine. ”

“ If they are, then those who do not make polygamy a part of their religious belief may be found guilty and punished, while those who do must be acquitted and go free. This would be introducing a new element into criminal law. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one belie ed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? ”

“ That because ecclesiastical judicature is confounded, and the office of prelates obstructed, when a Jew offending against ecclesiastical persons and things is convicted of these or other matters, which belong to the ecclesiastical court of pure right, and yet is not permitted by the king’s sheriffs or bailiffs to stand to the ecclesiastical law, but is rather forced to betake himself to the king’s court ”

“ While our institutions reflect a firm conviction that we are a religious people, those institutions by solemn constitutional injunction may not officially involve religion in such a way as to prefer, discriminate against, or oppress, a particular sect or religion. Equally the Constitution enjoins those involvements of religious with secular institutions which (a) serve the essentially religious activities of religious institutions ”

“ While, as the Court's opinion in Seeger points out, these definitions do not exhaust the almost infinite and sophisticated possibilities for defining 'religion,' there is strong evidence that Congress restricted, in this instance, the word to its conventional sense. That it is difficult to plot the semantic penumbra of the word 'religion' does not render this term so plastic in meaning that the Court is entitled, as matter of statutory construction, to conclude that any asserted and strongly held belief satisfies its requirements. ”

“ The State of California does not regulate the conduct plaintiffs label coercive persuasion in any other non-religious context, or even with respect to any other religion. To impose the restrictions plaintiffs desire on the Unification Church, this State would have to regulate rites and traditions common to mainstream religions, such as indoctrination of the young or manipulation of guilt feelings to induce upright behavior. ”