Can religious and secular courts exist in the same nation?

[Volokh, Eugene]

    But doesn't the "one side's choice" characterization assume the
conclusion that people's long-term contracts to engage in religious
arbitration shouldn't count as a choice?  As Cohen v. Cowles Media makes
clear, one can waive free speech rights, and I take it this can also be
done some time in advance.  (Various kinds of nondisclosure agreements
do this all the time.)  Nor does a political conversion excuse one from
such a waiver, I take it.  Ordinary arbitration agreements generally
waive jury trial rights, years in advance of the time when the jury
trial is to take place.  Why wouldn't people be able to waive their
rights not to have to go to religious court, when they expressly
contractually agree to that?  They would still retain the right to
change their faith -- just not to repudiate the promises they made
before that change.
 
    Eugene
 
Doug Laycock writes:
 

	I have gradually come round to the view that state recognition
of marriages performed by religious authority is problematic too, but
not for the same reasons as divorce.  The marriage is consensual, and
the choice of who is to perform the marriage is consensual; neither
spouse is being coerced by government power.  But a contested divorce is
not consensual, and if one spouse wants to be in religious court and the
other wants to be in civil court, the choice of where to get it is not
consensual.  The question is whether the state can use its coercive
power to enforce one side's choice.
	
	

	

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.ucla.edu/pipermail/religionlaw/attachments/20081121/f5f7ab6d/attachment.htm