Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick provides a very helpful and interesting bit of background on conscience clause legislation, that is, exemptions from requirements as a matter of conscience or religious belief. She frames the issue as a central question going forward for the scope of religious liberty in America.
We all have consciences and laws that exist to protect us from being forced to violate our religious and ethical principles should be welcome on the left and right. The problem isn’t conscience clause legislation so much as what we might call conscience creep: a slow but systematic effort to use religious conscience claims to sidestep laws that should apply to everyone. Recalibrating who can express a right of conscience (i.e do corporations have a conscience?) and what the limits of that conscience might be, may well be the next front in the religious liberty wars being waged in courts around the country.
You can find Ms. Lithwick’s very thoughtful piece here. Read the whole thing.
