Religious freedom and 42 USC 666

[Volokh, Eugene]

    Doug:  I much appreciate your responses, and you may well be right.
But I'm just not quite sure about the distinction between an objection
"to any behavior demanded of him" and an objection "to the government's
behavior."  As I understand it, his objection is to both, or rather to
the latter through the former.  He says, "I object to your demanding
that I go along with these things that are pursuant to 42 USC 666."
He's not just saying that there's something wrong with the government's
keeping records on him in room 666; he's saying that he refuses to go
along with what the government demands of him, because the demand is
made under 42 USC 666.  Indeed, in the process he's objecting to the
government's behavior, but the root of it is precisely the objection to
what's demanded of him -- something that wasn't the case in what
remained of Bowen, or for that matter in Lyng.
 
    Eugene


________________________________

	From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Douglas Laycock
	Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 7:51 PM
	To: religionlaw at lists.ucla.edu
	Subject: RE: Religious freedom and 42 USC 666
	
	

	I understand that difference. It shows that the line is not
perfectly clean.  few lines are.

	But fundamentally, this guy's religious objection is not to any
behavior demanded of him.  It is to the government's behavior.  He says,
"I'll pay my child support if you the government renumber your
statutes."  It is the government's behavior that has to change to put
him in compliance with his alleged religious beliefs, not his own
behavior.  Government wants him to pay $X to his wife, and he says he is
perfectly willing to pay $X to his wife.  But first, the government has
to do something that he says is required by his religion.  

	That is the essence of Lyng and Bowen.  He is not trying to
insulate his own behavior from regulation; he is trying to control the
government's behavior.

	 

	Quoting "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>:
	
	>         Well, I thought about Bowen v. Roy, but my sense is
that the
	> "internal procedures" point there was that the Roys weren't
required to
	> actually do anything that violated their religious beliefs
(the
	> government had stopped demanding that they provide Roy's
social security
	> number, and five Justices took the view that the government
indeed had a
	> constitutional obligation to so stop).  The Roys just thought
that the
	> government's practice of giving Roy a number was spiritually
harmful.
	>
	>         Here, the claimant seems to be arguing not that it's
bad for the
	> government to have a section 666 in its statutes, but that it
violates
	> his religion to comply with orders issued under that section.
	> Presumably, if the government copied or moved this to section
777, then
	> he'd be OK with complying, not because the government changed
its
	> internal procedures, but because the action that he would be
required to
	> do would no longer be pursuant to a statute numbered with the
number of
	> the beast.  So that seems different from Bowen v. Roy, no?
	>
	>         Eugene
	>
	> Tom Berg writes:
	>
	>> To the extent that he objects to paying the support even if
	>> the provision is renumbered, because the requirement is of
	>> the antichrist and the 666 simply evidences that, then I
	>> assume most courts would hold there's a burden but it's
	>> overcome by a compelling interest.  To the extent he says his
	>> objection would be cured by renumbering the provision, then
	>> doesn't this seem like Bowen v. Roy -- and therefore not a
	>> cognizable burden -- in that the numbering of a statute is a
	>> matter of the government's internal procedures like the
	>> assignment of a social security number in Roy?  If
	>> renumbering the provision would meet the objection, then the
	>> objection seems separable from the payment requirement itself
	>> and thus (arguably) concerns an internal government matter.
	>> It's not clear how much the Roy principle applies to RFRAs,
	>> but this might be the explanation for rejecting his claim
	>> that fits best into the previous law.
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	Douglas Laycock
	Yale Kamisar Collegiate Professor of Law
	University of Michigan Law School
	625 S. State St.
	Ann Arbor, MI  48109-1215
	  734-647-9713

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