FFRF's Brief in Religious Rights/Death Penalty Case

Online resources allow easy access to briefs, including friend of the court (amicus) briefs, and court opinions. Once upon a time, a college library access to slip opinions was a big deal, and I had to go to a certain library to look at lower court opinions.

Freedom From Religion Foundation has an interesting sort of brief in the upcoming case involving the right to have a minister to touch the person and vocally say prayers during an execution.  The writer of the brief was on Freethought Radio recently to talk about it along a woman who "fired God."  Let's say, like some others, it is a brief that adds something among briefs that often say basically the same thing in different ways.

[You can find the brief along with others here.]

I don't expect the Supreme Court as a whole to be overly impressed by the whole thing though it provides an interesting perspective.  As the author noted, many FFRF [there is a link on my blogroll, but the feed pops up when I put the link there, so you can just use this] members are against the death penalty.  The brief cites the usual arguments in summary argument there.  I don't think it really adds anything new there in general.  

The organization specific concern here is that the death penalty in part at least is justified by religious reasons.  This is done in a historical sense in the brief, but ironically it also argues that "almost all mainstream churches have formal opposition to this barbaric form of punishment."  And, it goes back to arguing that the death penalty violate current standards of decency.  I think it possible to provide more detail on how even today that the death penalty often is defended using religious rhetoric.   

Perhaps speaking to their audience (a conservative leaning Court with multiple judges interested in their own vision of religious liberty), a core argument is that the biggest threat to religious liberty is executing people.  The case here is about a rather trivial matter next to the end of a person's life, and their ability to practice their religion.  Yes, it is clear under current law that not allowing the person's wishes here to be fulfilled violates the law.  But, on a basic level, it is absurd to focus on that.

I think that has some force, but it might be talking past those who think the death penalty is appropriate in certain cases.  If it is appropriate, like something like killing animals for food, you then can focus on how it is important to do so appropriately.  I have seen people thinking it absurd to worry about a "trivial" matter like this while being okay with executions and wrongful detention.  You can worry about both. 

And, perhaps a viewpoint that assumes the absence of an afterlife (I don't think there is one, but I'm more focused on freethinking myself than "freedom from religion" itself) belittles some the importance of an end of life ritual.   If you believe in an afterlife, the person dying is not at the end of the line. They have a lot more time, shall we say, left.  Not that even those who belief it is the end of the line fail to recognize the importance of a finale.

The brief then argues that any execution process here needs to take into consideration those without religious beliefs.  If only religious people have "end-of-life" comfort of this nature, it is a sort of coercion to have religious beliefs.  Equal protection here would apply such accommodations to those with comparable beliefs such as the statutory application in the Seeger case involving conscientious objection.  

This overall would be necessary for a true right to "free exercise of religion" in a neutral way.  One law professor on Twitter rejected the right to have a special religious based end of life accommodation here -- why not a friend or relative?  But, the First Amendment doesn't refer to that. It refers to religion.  And, that includes a "non-religious"  (as I often said, I think the term "religion" is rather broad)  approach to the basic questions involved here.  Basically, conscience questions that all have.

The brief thus covers a lot of ground and provides an interesting perspective that might even surprise some FFRF followers.  

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ETA: By chance, I was actually wearing my FFRF tee while writing this entry.  Also, I have a FFRF calendar.  The historical figure that is highlighted for October is Alton Lemon, an African-American humanist beyond the Lemon v. Kurtzman "Lemon Test" ruling.  

Again, I am not not really as supportive of a total "freedom from religion" as being a freethinker -- my long term theme has been to give "religion" a wide meaning -- but do support many of their efforts.  Plus, they give out free copies of their newspaper, which includes promotion of swag.  

Some of their efforts basically reflect their "freedom from" sentiments and involve opposing religious symbols in the public sphere that involved governmental endorsement in some fashion.  I think those things of some importance, but they might be focused too much on them at times. I appreciate the brief here for its broad and interesting perspective.