Buddhist Prisoner Free Exercise Claims

The First Amendment is particularly important to dissenters, including religious dissenters though especially early on this was deemed to be limited to Christians or at most those who believe in God and an afterlife. An early Supreme Court case, in the 1840s, dealt with a conflict involving Catholics.  A more well know dispute later held that polygamy was not protected since free exercise dealt with belief, or more particularly [a pure application of that principle would ignore various commonly accepted religious acts] because polygamy was deemed to run against basic norms of Western civilization.  (Note that the Bible itself has polygamy.)

The first run of major religious disputes in the Supreme Court often included Jehovah Witnesses, including the famous flag dispute cases. One religion that popped up a few times is Buddhism, including in a case involving the right of a notary public not to need to swear allegiance to God.  In a footnote, it is noted that Buddhism is a religion that regularly is not one that has something generally understood to be deemed to a belief in God.  A dispute last year involved a Buddhist [not yet executed as of this date] deemed to be unequally denied a minister of his choice in the execution chamber. And, a little known prison rights case in the early 1970s gave a Buddhist inmate the right to show if he was being treated in an unequal way.

In the 21st Century, in large part because of congressional legislation protecting religious liberty in prison with a particular funding hook, there has been a sizable amount of litigation arising religious liberty in prisons including an Supreme Court opinion protecting Muslim prisoners having short beards (written by Justice Alito, who has long been fairly consistent in his free exercise stance, up to a point, at least*). But, protecting prisoners in the 1970s was a more novel thing, an earlier view treating prison as a sort of "civil death." See also, a court of appeals ruling a few years before at least leaving open the chance of Black Muslims to have one meal of day without pork, seen as a reasonable compromise.

That penal as well as judicial authorities respond to constitutional duties is vastly important to society as well as the prisoner. Treatment that degrades the inmate, invades his privacy, and frustrates the ability to choose pursuits through which he can manifest himself and gain self-respect erodes the very foundations upon which he can prepare for a socially useful life. Religion in prison subserves the rehabilitative function by providing an area within which the inmate may reclaim his dignity and reassert his individuality. But, quite ironically, while government provides prisoners with chapels, ministers, free sacred texts and symbols, there subsists a danger that prison personnel will demand from inmates the same obeisance in the religious sphere that more rightfully they may require in other aspects of prison life. This danger is not chimerical. In recent years, against the directives of the District of Columbia Commissioners, Muslim inmates in the custody of the Department of Corrections have been deprived of the most basic religious liberties, which only by court order have been restored.

The opinion (which one judge only warily went along with) in part quoted a 1940s Supreme Court opinion that implicitly held that prisoners did have some constitutional rights: "Lawful incarceration brings about the necessary withdrawal or limitation of many privileges and rights, a retraction justified by the considerations underlying our penal system."  The word "many" here implies there are some left.  See also, this 1970s article that also covered a case involving kosher meals.  And, as is often the case, the 1970s lawsuit was just the tip of the iceberg of a much wider story before and after it was handed down as discussed in the article.

The limits of a view of free exercise of religion that rests merely on beliefs is seen in the above cases -- e.g., dietary practices is a basic aspect of many religions.  This impetus of this entry was a somewhat amusing (such as the description of the vegan patty) lower court case though complaints about physical maladies arising from diet is not that amusing on some level.  The judgment held the vegan diet provided to a Buddhist prisoner was inadequate and substantially burdened his religious beliefs.  Veganism itself can be seen as a sort of religious belief (one book spoke of it as not just a matter of food but an overall ethic of nonviolence etc.). 

Current conflicts involving religious liberty claims at times seem to merely be a means for right leaning beliefs to clash with the rights of others such as discriminating against gay people. Other cases are more appealing, especially when they do not burden third parties.  A consistent approach is complicated and raises many issues that should respect religious diversity while not leading to ad hoc rulings that in effect honor only some in part since a consistent application requires a reasonable hand.

Note: I see that after a long lag that the animal blog on the blog list has a few new entries for this year. 

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* The execution dispute cited was a major controversy that in an earlier case went the other way.  Justice Alito eventually wrote an extended separate opinion that granted there was a strong case to be made on religious liberty ground while arguing the early case had a procedural problem.  People pushed back on that but to grant him his due, it showed that Justice Alito has a history of respecting religious liberty to practice going back to time on the court of appeals.

My wariness is that this would include things like practicing one's religion as an employee that supports usage of contraceptives or abortion in certain cases and so forth.  Or, to have legislative prayer policies that respect the beliefs of all religious beliefs. And so forth.  Just what free exercise entails is complicated.  But, his support of things like Muslim prisoners wearing beards shows it is wrong to dismiss him as just caring about right wing religions.