THS 2120!

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

You may not explicitly say that 'they have to be stopped'. But do consider that the protection of religions seems to at least partially be intertwined with the assumption that when a person says "I believe YHWH is the best deity" this is an earnest deeply-held belief that entitles a person to some special protections, as opposed to "I believe chocolate ice-cream is best", which does not (because it's considered a belief not as deeply-held).

That is not "protecting" religious practice. It is _empowering_ it with rights not given to non-religions.

That's not only dubious in my eyes it's viewed as a very slippery slope in US law generally. See some of the commentary on yesterday's bakery case that the Supreme Court decided. Apparently, the main reason that the Court ruled the way it did was that the original forum the case was heard in was not neutral towards the baker's religion. Rather it was actively hostile. Simple neutrality may have avoided SCOTUS' problems with the case.

Also, note that if a lower court had been actively hostile to one party's ethnicity or gender or a similar factor the case would not be likely to have gotten as far as it did.

So no, I wouldn't give special rights to religious belief and this is one area where i may not be out of the local mainstream.