Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah

when the Cuban Revolution brought large amounts of Cuban exiles to Hialeah, a good size town at the bottom of Florida. A small Afro-Cuban religious group called the Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye decides that they are now in America to stay. The Church of…

The question was whether to arrest the skinheads or to let them go. In light of R.A.V. v. St. Paul, I knew that government could not limit or punish speech and conduct because it does not agree with that speech or conduct.12 Virgina v. Black disallows "treating cross burning as prima facie evidence of intent" but states that, coupled with the intent to intimidate, cross burning can be banned.13 Since the skinheads were well within their right to free speech and there was no mention in the…

However, the Caviezel court noted that the Supreme Court has mentioned religious exemptions two other times in Wisconsin v. Yoder and Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith. These were two very influential cases involving the Free Exercise Clause. Both times the Court had indicated that no exemption exists. First, in Yoder, the case in which the Court had exempted Amish children from Wisconsin’s compulsory education law, the Court stated that “[t]his case,…

Government Declared War on the First Amendment, he quotes, ¨This Amendment has been a subject of continuing interpretation and dispute over the years. The freedom of religion has been used in involvement of the foreign wars, flag burning and the publication of secret government documents.¨ As mentioned in John Vile´s article, he explains about how the Religious Freedom Restoration Act supported their issue. ¨It attempted to ensure that the Court did not override free exercise claims except in…

The Establishment Clause: Arguments against the interpretation of the Establishment Clause have been more recent than that of the Free Exercise Clause. This Clause states, “The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion….” The very first Establishment Clause case brought forth to the Supreme Court was in the 1947 Everson v. Board of Education case. This case is considered a landmark decision, mainly because it tied the Establishment…