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Vanderbilt University Law School

2008

Vanderbilt Law Review

First Amendment

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Toward A Rfra That Works, Nicholas Nugent Apr 2008

Toward A Rfra That Works, Nicholas Nugent

Vanderbilt Law Review

The history of the Supreme Court's First Amendment jurisprudence regarding the proper standard of protection for the free exercise of religion is complicated. In determining how the First Amendment speaks to situations in which generally applicable health, welfare, and safety laws incidentally or accidentally burden certain individuals' religious practices, the Court has vacillated between different standards and different extremes, overruling itself several times. Early on, the Court held that, provided the government did not interfere deliberately with religion for religious reasons, an inadvertent interference with religious practice raised no Free xercise Clause problem,' "no matter how trivial the state's nonreligious …


Changing The Rules Of Establishment Clause Litigation: An Alternative To The Public Expression Of Religion Act, Christopher D. Tomlinson Jan 2008

Changing The Rules Of Establishment Clause Litigation: An Alternative To The Public Expression Of Religion Act, Christopher D. Tomlinson

Vanderbilt Law Review

In 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union ("ACLU") threatened to sue the city of Redlands, California, if it did not remove a small cross from its city seal.' The cross represented the city's religious heritage and its history as a city of churches. Instead of facing the possibility of litigation and the more daunting risk of losing in court and being forced to pay the ACLU's attorneys' fees in addition to its own, the Redlands City Council agreed to change the seal. The City of Redlands not only could ill afford the risk of paying the ACLU's attorneys' fees; it …