Case Study: Employment Division V. Smith

Employment Division v Smith brought upon the issue of what extent does the free exercise clothes of the first amendment accommodates for. Alfred Smith and Galen Black worked as counselors for private drug rehabilitation. They were fired from their jobs because they ingested peyote. Both ingested peyote for sacramental purposes at a ceremony of the Native American Church, which he was a member of and both were denied benefits because they had been discharged for work-related "misconduct". The court ruled not to give smith an accommodation. The court in this case ran this through the Sherbet, which we learned last week. The Sherbet test states” the free exercise clause requires accommodation for religiously motivated behavior in the face of a law burdening that behavior unless: there is a compelling state interest for that law; and the law is the least restrictive means for a advancing the compelling state interest”. In this case the court ruled that Smith did not pass the Sherbet test. Ruling that there should be no exceptions from religion to exceed the powers of law. The court held that the First Amendment bars …show more content…
I agree with the court’s ruling because in their ruling they were able to explain that under some circumstances the actions of religion are amendable and that there is some flexibility that allows freedom of action to exist. In general I agree that laws are made to be laws and that people should not be given expectation to surpass the law because of religion. With that said, I would not have agreed with the courts decision if they did not provided cases or situations in which the free expression clause did more than just protect the belief that religions have. Also, in this case the over whelming point of “laws are laws” out weight any freedom of exercise clause, and while the court could have over ruled the state legislation I agree with the reasoning behind not over ruling that