Comment by hodwik2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hodwik2 | Hacker News Reader

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It, in no unclear terms, says that you can limit free exercise, so long as you live up to two pretty low standards:

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"b. Government may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—

(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest;

and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."

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This is much less binding than the first amendment: "Congress _shall make no law_ respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

The constitution provided no exceptions whatsoever. By definition, a law which adds exceptions has moved the bar textually. It is, by definition, unconstitutional.

Again, it was a bad move by conservatives using liberal laws to protect themselves, rather than just pushing for conservative laws.

"only if" is restrictive, not permissive, "if" is permissive, and "if and only if" is both permissive and restrictive.

> This is much less binding than the first amendment:

I understand you view it that way, however, the author's of the bill did it because it was more restrictive on government than the first amendment had been applied by the courts, as it applies to neutral and generally applicable laws with incidental impacts on religious practice.

> The constitution provided no exceptions whatsoever.

OTOH, the constitution provides no qualifications whatsoever on various grants of power to government that it provides, either. The various scrutiny levels (strict, intermediate, and rational basis) serve, at least as regards federal action, to resolve conflicts between unqualified restrictions and unqualified grants of power (its true that other modes of legal interpretation are conceivable -- a strict "newest wins" rule, say, could be applied, in which case the first amendment grants would trump all powers in the "base" Constitution, but all powers granted by later amendments would completely ignore restrictions imposed by the First Amendment. So, say, commerce clause action would be completely prohibited from any impact on religious exercise, but income tax could be deliberately constructed to suppress a given religion with no Constitutional difficulty.)

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