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RFRA
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (November 16, 1993), codified at through (also known as RFRA, pronounced "rifra"), is a 1993 United States federal law that "ensures that interests in religious freedom are protected." The bill was introduced by Congressman Chuck Schumer ( D- NY) on March 11, 1993. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate by Ted Kennedy ( D- MA) the same day. A unanimous U.S. House and a nearly unanimous U.S. Senate—three senators voted against passage—passed the bill, and President Bill Clinton signed it into law. RFRA, as applied to the states, was held unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in the ''City of Boerne v. Flores'' decision in 1997, which ruled that the RFRA is not a proper exercise of Congress's enforcement power. However, it continues to be applied to the federal government—for instance, in '' Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal'' (2006) and '' Bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts
State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts are state laws based on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a federal law that was passed almost unanimously by the U.S. Congress in 1993 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The laws mandate that religious liberty of individuals can only be limited by the "least restrictive means of furthering a compelling government interest". Originally, the federal law was intended to apply to federal, state, and local governments. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court in '' City of Boerne v. Flores'' held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act only applies to the federal government but not states and other local municipalities within them. As a result, 21 states have passed their own RFRAs that apply to their individual state and local governments. Pre ''Hobby Lobby'' The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (November 16, 1993), codified at through (also known as RFRA), is a 1993 United Sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sherbert Test
''Sherbert v. Verner'', 374 U.S. 398 (1963), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment required the government to demonstrate both a compelling interest and that the law in question was narrowly tailored before it denied unemployment compensation to someone who was fired because her job requirements substantially conflicted with her religion. The case established the ''Sherbert'' Test, requiring demonstration of such a compelling interest and narrow tailoring in all Free Exercise cases in which a religious person was substantially burdened by a law. The conditions are the key components of what is usually called strict scrutiny. In 1990, the Supreme Court decided that the ''Sherbert'' Test, as a judicial constitutional analysis tool, was too broad when applied to all laws. With respect to religiously neutral, generally applicable laws that incidentally burden religious exercise, the Sherbert Test was elimina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Amendment To The United States Constitution
The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was proposed to assuage Anti-Federalist opposition to Constitutional ratification. Initially, the First Amendment applied only to laws enacted by the Congress, and many of its provisions were interpreted more narrowly than they are today. Beginning with '' Gitlow v. New York'' (1925), the Supreme Court applied the First Amendment to states—a process known as incorporation—through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In ''Everson v. Board of Education'' (1947), the Court drew on Thoma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Congressional Power Of Enforcement
A Congressional power of enforcement is included in a number of amendments to the United States Constitution. The language "''The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation''" is used, with slight variations, in Amendments XIII, XIV, XV, XIX, XXIII, XXIV, and XXVI. The variations in the pertinent language are as follows: The Thirteenth Amendment leaves out the word "the", the Fourteenth Amendment states "The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." In addition to the amendments above, the Eighteenth Amendment states "The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Initial creation and use These provisions made their first appearance in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which were adopted during the Reconstruction period primarily to abolish slavery and protect the rights of the newly emanc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Exercise Clause Of The First Amendment
The Free Exercise Clause accompanies the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The ''Establishment Clause'' and the ''Free Exercise Clause'' together read: Free exercise is the liberty of persons to reach, hold, practice and change beliefs freely according to the dictates of conscience. The Free Exercise Clause prohibits government interference with religious belief and, within limits, religious practice. To accept any creed or the practice of any form of worship cannot be compelled by laws, because, as stated by the Supreme Court in '' Braunfeld v. Brown'', the freedom to hold religious beliefs and opinions is absolute. Federal or state legislation cannot therefore make it a crime to hold any religious belief or opinion due to the Free Exercise Clause. Legislation by the United States or any constituent state of the United States which forces anyone to embrace any religious belief or to say or believe anything in conflict with his relig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Native American Religion
Native American religions are the spiritual practices of the Native Americans in the United States. Ceremonial ways can vary widely and are based on the differing histories and beliefs of individual nations, tribes and bands. Early European explorers describe individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices. Theology may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, shamanistic, pantheistic or any combination thereof, among others. Traditional beliefs are usually passed down in the forms of oral histories, stories, allegories, and principles. Overview Beginning in the 1600s, European Christians, both Catholics and those of various Protestant denominations, sought to convert Native American tribes from their pre-existing beliefs to Christianity. After the United States gained independence in the late 1700s, its government continued to suppress Indigenous practices and promote forcible conversion. Governme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chuck Schumer
Charles Ellis Schumer ( ; born November 23, 1950) is an American politician serving as Senate Majority Leader since January 20, 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, Schumer is in his fourth Senate term, having held his seat since 1999, and is the senior United States senator from New York. He is the dean of New York's congressional delegation. A native of Brooklyn and a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Schumer was a three-term member of the New York State Assembly from 1975 to 1980. He served nine terms in the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1999, first representing New York's 16th congressional district before being redistricted to the 10th congressional district in 1983 and 9th congressional district ten years later. In 1998, Schumer was elected to the Senate, defeating three-term Republican incumbent Al D'Amato. He was reelected in 2004 with 71% of the vote, in 2010 with 66% of the vote, in 2016 with 70% of the vote, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Religious Freedom In The United States
In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Freedom of religion is closely associated with separation of church and state, a concept advocated by Colonial founders such as Dr. John Clarke, Roger Williams, William Penn, and later Founding Fathers such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. The way freedom of religion is interpreted has changed over time in the United States and continues to be controversial. The issue was a major topic of George Washington's Farewell Address. Several American states had their own official state churches both before and after the First Amendment was passed. Illegal religion was a major cause of the 1890–1891 Ghost Dance War. Starting in 1918, nearly all of the pacifist Hutterites emigrated to Canada when Joseph and Michael Hofer died following torture for conscientious objection to the draft. Some have since returned, but most Hutterites remain in Can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Public Health And Social Welfare
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkeit'' or public sphere. The concept of a public has also been defined in political science, psychology, marketing, and advertising. In public relations and communication science, it is one of the more ambiguous concepts in the field. Although it has definitions in the theory of the field that have been formulated from the early 20th century onwards, and suffered more recent years from being blurred, as a result of conflation of the idea of a public with the notions of audience, market segment, community, constituency, and stakeholder. Etymology and definitions The name "public" originates with the Latin ''publicus'' (also '' poplicus''), from ''populus'', to the English word 'populace', and in general denotes some mass population ("the pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Court Citation
Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case citations are formatted differently in different jurisdictions, but generally contain the same key information. A legal citation is a "reference to a legal precedent or authority, such as a case, statute, or treatise, that either substantiates or contradicts a given position." Where cases are published on paper, the citation usually contains the following information: * Court that issued the decision * Report title * Volume number * Page, section, or paragraph number * Publication year In some report series, for example in England, Australia and some in Canada, volumes are not numbered independently of the year: thus the year and volume number (usually no greater than 4) are required to identify which book of the series has the case report ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peyote Ceremony Tipi
The peyote (; ''Lophophora williamsii'' ) is a small, spineless cactus which contains psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline. ''Peyote'' is a Spanish word derived from the Nahuatl (), meaning "caterpillar cocoon", from a root , "to glisten". p. 246. See peyotl in Wiktionary. Peyote is native to Mexico and southwestern Texas. It is found primarily in the Sierra Madre Occidental, the Chihuahuan Desert and in the states of Nayarit, Coahuila, Nuevo León, Tamaulipas, and San Luis Potosí among scrub. It flowers from March to May, and sometimes as late as September. The flowers are pink, with thigmotactic anthers (like ''Opuntia''). Known for its psychoactive properties when ingested, peyote has at least 5,500 years of entheogenic and medicinal use by indigenous North Americans. Description The various species of the genus ''Lophophora'' grow low to the ground and they often form groups with numerous, crowded shoots. The blue-green, yellow-green or sometimes reddish- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strict Scrutiny
In U.S. constitutional law, when a law infringes upon a fundamental constitutional right, the court may apply the strict scrutiny standard. Strict scrutiny holds the challenged law as presumptively invalid unless the government can demonstrate that the law or regulation is necessary to achieve a " compelling or overriding state interest". The government must also demonstrate that the law is "narrowly tailored" to achieve that compelling purpose, and that it uses the "least restrictive means" to achieve that purpose. Failure to meet this standard will result in striking the law as unconstitutional. The standard is the highest and most stringent standard of judicial review and is part of the levels of judicial scrutiny that courts use to determine whether a constitutional right or principle should give way to the government's interest against observance of the principle. The lesser standards are rational basis review and exacting or intermediate scrutiny. These standards are appli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
