Not just believers.

[Alan Gunn]

In message Tue, 14 Oct 1997 11:45:31 -0500,
  richard duncan <rduncan at UNLINFO.UNL.EDU>  writes:

>
> Sure. But the Free Ex issue is whether the the printer's objection is
> religiously motivated/compelled. A might say I find pornography
> morally offensive although I have no particular religious belief about
> it. B might say it is sinful for me to facilitate the publication of
> pornography. A's claim is not a Free Ex claim. B's claim is--even
> though B's business is a "secular" business, his objection is based
> upon his religious beliefs about the sinfulness of facilitating
> pornographic publications.
>
  I am (vaguely) aware of the need to find a constitutional peg to hang a
possible exemption on. My problem though is that if you hang it on this
particular peg, you are saying, really, that religious people, who can
always claim, quite sincerely, to have a religious objection to things they
think morally wrong, will be exempt while the non-religious, who have moral
objections not different in any basic way that I can see, don't qualify. Or,
to approach the problem from a different angle, is there really any
difference, in principle, among religious Jews, non-religious Jews,
Methodists, and agnostics who would object strongly to having to
print drivel about the Holocaust, to use your example. And even if there is
a difference, in principle, is it one that can be given operational effect,
or will we just end up with a right that any churchgoer can assert, and that
others can't (except for those who create their own one-person religions to
fit the occasion)?
  (I'm inclined to think, without insisting, that religion is the basis for
all morality, and that, as someone whose name I've forgotten once put it,
unbelievers who have strong moral views are "living on capital." That
doesn't change the fact, though, that lots of unreligious people do have
strong moral beliefs. Constitutional technicalities aside, isn't it
troublesome to say that some people's deep beliefs count less than people's?
And just as troublesome when the argument comes from believers as when it
comes from Rawls?)
  I'm really trying to ask a question here (along the lines of why is
religion unique, history and constitutional text aside), not to make an
argument.

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Alan Gunn
Notre Dame Law School