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Full-Text Articles in Religion Law
New Light On The History Of Free Exercise Exemptions: The Debates In Two Eighteenth-Century State Legislatures, Stanton D. Krauss
New Light On The History Of Free Exercise Exemptions: The Debates In Two Eighteenth-Century State Legislatures, Stanton D. Krauss
Catholic University Law Review
As Justice Gorsuch pointed out in his concurring opinion in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 138 S. Ct. 1719, 1734 (2018), there is an ongoing debate about whether the First Amendment ever requires the recognition of religion-based exemptions to neutral and generally applicable laws. The leading proponent of such exemptions has argued that the original understanding of the Free Exercise Clause supports his claim, and that the existence of such exemptions in preconstitutional American statutes – which he believed to have been granted because legislators thought them mandated by “the free exercise principle” – is one factor …