Also known as: free exercise
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A constitutional provision in the First Amendment that bars government from prohibiting religious practices or forms of worship. The clause protects sincere religious exercise from laws that target religion or lack neutrality and general applicability. When a law burdens religious conduct through selective treatment or discretionary exemptions, strict scrutiny applies.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
The Riverbend Indigenous Council plans its annual water blessing ceremony that includes planting wooden prayer stakes in a protected wetland. The State Habitat Authority enacts a ban on seasonal riverbank ceremonies using such stakes while allowing secular educational displays and research markers that disturb the same soil. The council sues, claiming the selective ban burdens its religious practice.
A city passes an ordinance that prohibits animal slaughter performed according to Santeria religious rituals while permitting comparable secular killings for food and pest control. Practitioners of Santeria challenge the ordinance after facing enforcement actions tied directly to their worship ceremonies. The law singles out the religious method of slaughter for prohibition.
An employee is fired after using peyote during a religious ceremony of the Native American Church. The state denies unemployment benefits because the use violates a neutral criminal prohibition on controlled substances that applies to all persons regardless of motivation. The employee claims the denial burdens free exercise of religion.
A religiously affiliated foster care agency requests an exemption from a city policy requiring certification of same-sex couples as foster parents. The city grants individualized exemptions to secular agencies for operational reasons but denies the religious agency's request. The agency sues, alleging the discretionary exemption system burdens its religious exercise.
Amish parents withdraw their children from formal schooling after eighth grade in accordance with religious beliefs that secondary education conflicts with their faith and way of life. The state enforces its compulsory attendance law requiring schooling until age sixteen. The parents seek an exemption based on their community's self-sufficiency and alternative educational practices.
A student religious group submits a request for university funding to print a publication that discusses religious viewpoints on campus issues. University officials deny the request under a policy that withholds funds from religious publications while funding secular student groups on similar topics. The group challenges the denial as burdening its religious expression.
Strict scrutiny applies when a law targets religious conduct, lacks neutrality, or is not generally applicable because it permits individualized exemptions that can be granted or denied on a discretionary basis. In such cases the government must show the law is narrowly tailored to a compelling interest.
Supporting sources
No. A neutral law of general applicability that only incidentally burdens religious practice does not violate the Free Exercise Clause and need only satisfy rational basis review. The clause does not relieve individuals from compliance with such laws absent targeting of religion.
…“impairing the Obligation of Contracts,” denying “Full Faith and Credit” to the “public Acts” of other States, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing the right to keep and bear arms, authorizing unreasonable searches and seizures, and so forth. Aside from these limitations, those…
…the States.[^maj-35] It has not even been argued that this is a law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."[^maj-36] And surely, unless the solemn process of constitutional adjudication is to descend to the level of a play on words, there is not involved here any abridgment of "the…
…of Ore. v. Smith , 494 U. S. 872, 879-880 (1990), we observed: "[Our] decisions have consistently held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his…
…under which proxies may be solicited with a view to preventing the recurrence of abuses which . . . [had] frustrated the free exercise of the voting rights of stockholders.” Id. , at 14. “Too often proxies are solicited without explanation to the stockholder of the real nature of the questions for which authority to cast…
…under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Held: The compulsory school-attendance law violated respondents' rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Pp. 215-236. (a) The Amish have a legitimate, objectively verifiable belief that their communal way of life and their religious beliefs are inseparable and…
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Selective enforcement that singles out religious practice while permitting analogous secular conduct demonstrates that a law is not neutral or generally applicable. This triggers strict scrutiny because the government has effectively targeted religion for unfavorable treatment.
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When a policy allows officials to grant individualized exemptions for secular reasons but denies comparable religious requests, the policy is not generally applicable. Strict scrutiny then governs, and the government must justify the denial under that demanding standard.
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Yes when the practices are part of a sincere religious way of life that satisfies the state's educational interests through alternative means. Parents whose religion forbids formal secondary schooling may obtain an exemption if their community is self-sufficient and the alternative training meets state goals.
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