Judgmental Neutrality: When the Supreme Court Inevitably Implies that Your Religion is Just Plain Wrong
Judgmental Neutrality: When the Supreme Court Inevitably Implies that Your Religion is Just Plain Wrong
Lincoln Davis Wilson, 38 Seton Hall L. Rev. 715 (2008)
This Comment will only set forth the logically necessary consequences of the statements and rulings of the Court. If we accept these statements and rulings as premises, then in some circumstances we must inevitably conclude that the Court has passed judgment on the substance of individual beliefs. This plain reliance on logic is beneficial, for it removes from the ultimate conclusions any partisan flavor that could otherwise be insinuated. If the argument form is valid and all premises are agreed upon, then the conclusions here drawn ought to be equally amenable to the liberal and the conservative, the Hindu and the Mormon, the Scalia and the Souter.
Part II will begin with a brief survey of how the Supreme Court’s policy of not evaluating the truth of religious beliefs is interwoven with its principle of neutrality toward religion. Part III will state the fundamental assumptions undergirding the Comment and set forth its formal argument, which is grounded in propositional logic. Examples and illustrations will be provided where appropriate. Part IV will apply the formal argument to key cases in the Supreme Court’s Free Exercise jurisprudence, and clarify the scope of the thesis. Part V will rebut foreseeable objections to the argument. Part VI will address some of the practical and philosophical implications of the argument.