Not just believers.

[richard duncan]

>   (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.
>
> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> Alan Gunn
> Notre Dame Law School
>
Alan's question is a good question indeed. And it is one we have gone
around the block with several times already.

I don't think free exercise is based on the idea that
some people's deep beliefs count less than those of certain others. To
say that religiously motivated conduct is entitled to an exemption is
not to say that these beliefs are correct or more worthwhile. It is
instead to say that religious believers owe allegiance to two
sovereigns--God and Caesar--and that the claims of God trump the claims
of Caesar. This is a (too) brief response to a very important
question. But most of what I would say has already been said better by
McConnell and Laycock and some others on earlier threads.

--
                   ----------
             Rick Duncan (rduncan at unlinfo.unl.edu)

"So if I stand let me stand on the promise that You will pull me
through, And if I can't let me fall on the grace that first brought me
to You, If I sing let me sing for the joy that has born in me these
songs, But if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his Home."
                 --Rich Mullins (October 21, 1955-September 19, 1997)