> The novelty of a "religious idea" shouldn't be a factor as to whether it should be regarded as valid.
This would lead to effective anarchy and defiance of local and national law. It must be regarded as a 'strongly held' belief.
This would lead to effective anarchy and defiance of local and national law. It must be regarded as a 'strongly held' belief.
“Anarchy” won’t result. Courts and employment law have settled on “reasonable accommodation”. If an employer can spend a reasonable amount of time and effort (“reasonable” is defined in legal precedent) to make the employee productive, then they have to, otherwise they part ways. The question here is whether it’s reasonable effort to support a managed Linux desktop in the same way as they support Windows. Probably pretty situational based on how much management/monitoring they have in place, whether their systems support Linux, etc.
This is not correct. The courts have indeed ruled on criteria that defines what is and is not a religious belief. Here's one such case:
From the legal analysis linked below: "The Court rejected a distinction between beliefs derived externally (that is, from a religious tradition) and internally (that is, from purely personal beliefs). In Seeger the Court moved definitively away from requiring theistic belief — that is, belief in a Supreme Being — as a necessary condition for a belief to be religious under the First Amendment."
And further, in 1970, Welsh v. US went even farther: "In Welsh the Court made explicit its rejection of a distinction between personal belief and affiliation with, or practice of, a recognized religious tradition."
[1] https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/240/united-stat...
In any case, beliefs have to be religious in nature, not personal or based on reason or 'science' or what have you.
Have any of the abortion ban laws been written with any language that would invalidate challenges based on religion, i.e. The Satanic Temple.