Final Quotes
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states RESPECTIVELY, or to the people."
10th amendment - police powers
""The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable SEARCHES AND SEIZURES, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
4th amendment
"not securing the rights of conscience in matters of religion, of granting the liberty of worshipping God AGREEABLE to the mode thereby dictated."
Albany, NY antifeds
"Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, wihthout DUE PROCESS of law."
Amend 14, section 1- Due Process Caluse
"[N]o religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God. . . ."
Article 37 of Maryland's Constitution
"The Senators and Representatives...and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but NO RELIGIOUS TEST shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
Article VI, sec 3
"We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and by-word down to FUTURE AGES...I therefore beg leave to move — that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service." .
Benjamin Franklin - Federal Constitution Convention 1787
"This Court over the years painstakingly has developed a consistent and exacting standard to test the constitutionality of a state statute that burdens the free exercise of religion. Such a statute may stand only if the law in general, and the State's REFUSAL to allow a religious exemption in particular, are justified by a compelling interest that cannot be served by less restrictive means.
Blackmun's dissent - Resources of Oregon v Smith
"Until today, I thought this was a settled and inviolate principle of this Court's First Amendment jurisprudence. The majority, however, perfunctorily dismisses it as a "constitutional anomaly." ... The Court discards leading free exercise cases such as Cantwell ..., and ...Yoder ... as "HYBRID." ... In short, it effectuates a wholesale overturning of settled law concerning the Religion Clauses of our Constitution."
Blackmun's dissent - Resources of Oregon v Smith
"One hopes that the Court is aware of the consequences, and that its result is not a product of overreaction to the serious problems the country's DRUG CRISIS has generated."
Blacmun's dissent - Resources of Oregon v Smith
"Against this background, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is 'deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition' or 'implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, FACETIOUS."
Bowers v. Hardwich 1986
"It is obvious to us that neither of these forumlations would extend a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts of consensual SODOMY."
Bowers v. Hardwick (1986)
"These days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an EDUCATIOn. Such an opportunity, where the state has undertaken to provide it, is a right which must be made available to all on EQUAL TERMS."
Brown v Board
"To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications SOLELY BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone."
Brown v Board
"We conclude that, in the field of PUBLIC EDUCATION, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place."
Brown v Board
"We hold that the regulations that impose this obligation violate RFRA, which prohibits the Federal Government from taking any action that substantially BURDENS the exercise of religion unless that action constitutes the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest."
Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores
" This being so, the only question which remains is WHETHER those who make polygamy a part of their religion are excepted from the operation of the statute. ....This would be introducing a new element into criminal law. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. . . . Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself."
CJ Morrison Waite citing TJ's letter to Danbury Baptists - Reynolds v. US 1874
"In our opinion, the statute ... is within the legislative power of Congress. It is constitutional and valid as prescribing a rule of action for all those residing in the TERRITORIES...."
CJ Morrison Waite citing TJ's letter to Danbury Baptists - Reynolds v. US 1874
"...a State's interest in universal education, however highly we rank it, is not totally free from a balancing process when it impinges on fundamental rights and interests, such as those [of]...the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, and the TRADITIONAL interest of parents with respect to the religious upbringing of their children so long as they...'prepare [them] for additional obligations.'"
CJ Warren Burger - Wisconsin v Yoder
"to compel SCHOOL ATTENDANCE ... against a claim that such attendance interferes with the practice of a legitimate religious belief, it must appear either that [1] the State does not deny the free exercise of religious belief by its requirement or that [2] there is a state interest of sufficient magnitude to override the interest claiming protection under the Free Exercise Clause."
CJ Warren Burger - Wisconsin v Yoder
"The fundamental CONCEPT of liberty embodied in [the 14th] Amendment embraces the liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment," including "-- freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but, ... the second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society. ... In every case, the power to regulate must be so exercised as not, in attaining a permissible end, unduly to infringe the protected freedom."
Cantwell v. Connecticut 1940
"The constitutional rights of respondents are not to be SACRIFICED or yielded to the violence and disorder which have followers upon the actions of the Governor and Legislature."
Cooper v. Aaron (1958)
"Action which the Court deemed to be ANTISOCIAL could be punished even though it was grounded on deeply held and sincere religious convictions."
Douglas' dissent - Wisconsin v Yoder
"What we do today, at least in this respect, opens the way to give organized religion a broader base than it has ever enjoyed, and it even promises that in time REYNOLDS will be overruled."
Douglas' dissent - Wisconsin v Yoder
"[In Reynolds] it was conceded that polygamy was a part of the religion of the Mormons. Yet the Court said, 'It matters not that his belief [in polygamy] was a part of his professed religion: it was still belief, and belief only.'"
Douglas's dissent - Wisconsin v Yoder
"Indeed, religious liberty, and all of the FULFILLMENT OF THE SOUL and tranquility of conscience that that phrase conveys, is impossible to fully enjoy, unless religious tolerance is first embraced by society and enshrined in the nation's fundamental law. Otherwise, history has shown that sooner or later, a political majority will arise and ban all religious beliefs, views, and acts of worship contrary to its compulsory tenets."
Dr. Griffin on John Jay
"The No Religious Test Clause of Article VI of the Constitution and the Free-Exercise Clause and Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, were not ratified to eliminate religion from the public square, but to prevent one state religion from limiting or banning the religious liberty of the nation's religious minorities. These constitutional provisions were not meant to protect government from religion, but to protect religion from government. They were not meant to prohibit, limit, or chill religious liberty (including expression and association), but to ensure that the people's free-exercise of religion would carry on THROUGHOUT THE AGES."
Dr. Griffin on John Jay
[W]e cannot W]e cannot say that the First Amendment prohibits New Jersey from spending tax raised funds to pay the bus fares of PAROCHIAL school pupils as a part of a general program under which it pays the fares of pupils attending public and other schools."
EVERSON v. Board of Education
"The Establishment Clause, unlike the Free Exercise Clause, does not does not depend upon any showing of direct governmental compulsion direct governmental compulsion and is violated by violated by the ENACTMENT of laws enactment of laws which establish an official religion whether those laws operate directly to coerce nonobserving individuals or not."
Engel v Vitale 1962
"But the purposes underlying the Establishment Clause go much further than that. Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to DEGRADE religion."
Engel v. Vitale 1962
"To those who may subscribe to the view that that, because the REGENTS' official prayer is so brief and general there can be no danger to religious freedom in its governmental establishment, however, it may be appropriate to say in the words of James James Madison, the author of the First Amendment"
Engel v. Vitale 1962
"We think that, by using its public school system to encourage recitation encourage recitation of the REGENTS' prayer, the State of New York has adopted a practice wholly inconsistent wholly inconsistent with the Establishment Clause."
Engel v. Vitale 1962
"nor shall any state...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the EQUAL PROTECTION of the laws."
Equal Protection Clause
"The First Amendment has erected a wall between church a wall between church and state. and state. That wall must be kept high and IMPREGNABLE kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. New Jersey has not breached it here."
Everson v Board of Education
"Municipally owned TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM undertakes to carry all school children free of charge. ...the First Amendment...requires the state to be children free of charge. ...the First Amendment...requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to be their believers; it does not require the state to be their adversary. State power . State power is no more to be used is no more to be used so as to handicap religions, than it is to , than it is to favor them."
Everson v Board of Education - Hugo Black
"The State contributes no money to the schools. The State contributes no money to the schools. It does not support them. Its legislation, as applied, does no more than provide a general program to help parents provide a general program to help parents get their children, regardless of their religion, safely and EXPENDITIOUSLY to and from accredited schools.
Everson v School Board
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the FREE EXERCISE thereof..."
Free Exercise Clause - 1st amendment
"WE conclude, therefore, that because the University's use of race in its current FRESHMAN ADMISSIONS policy is not narrowly tailored..."
Gratz v Bollinger
"I agree with the Court that Connecticut's Connecticut's birth control law unconstitutionally intrudes unconstitutionally intrudes upon the upon the right of marital privacy..."
Griswald v CT
'For myself, it would be most irksome to be ruled by a bevy of Platonic GUARDIANS, even if I knew how to choose them, which I assuredly do not.'" "So far as I am concerned, Connecticut's law, as applied here, is not forbidden by any provision of the Federal Constitution as that Constitution was written, and I would therefore affirm."
Griswald v CT
"The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees. .... Would we allow the police to search the sacred precincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the use of CONTRACEPTIVES? The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy surrounding the marriage relationship."
Griswold v CT
"specific GUARANTEES in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. .... Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one.... The Third Amendment, in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers "in any house" in time of peace without the consent of the owner..... The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." The Fifth Amendment, in its Self-Incrimination Clause.... The Ninth Amendment provides: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Griswold v CT
"The equal protection clause does not prohibit the LAW SCHOOL's narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the education benefits that flow from a diverse student body."
Grutter v Bollinger
"Some are afraid, Mr. Chairman, that, should the Constitution be received, they would be deprived of the privilege of worshipping God according to their consciences, which would be taking from them a benefit they enjoy under the present constitution. They wish to know if their religious and civil liberties be secured under this system, or whether the general government may not make laws infringing their religious liberties. The worthy member from Edenton [James Iredell] mentioned sundry political reasons why treaties should be the supreme law of the land. It is feared, by some people, that, by the power of making treaties, they might make a treaty engaging with foreign powers to adopt the ROMAN CATHOLIC religion in the United States, which would prevent the people from worshipping God according to their own consciences."
Henry Abbott
"We ought to be SUSPICIOUS of our liberties. We have felt the effects of oppressive measures, and know the happy consequences of being jealous of our rights. ... Could I be convinced that the objections were well founded, I would then declare my opinion against the Constitution.
Henry Abbott
"The power and authority of the State of Maryland thus is put on the side of one particular sort of believers -- those who are willing to say they believe in 'the existence of God.'"
Hugo Black's holding - Torcaso v. Watkins 1961
"This Maryland religious test for public office unconstitutionally invades the appellant's freedom of belief and religion, and therefore cannot be enforced against him."
Hugo Black's holding - Torcaso v. Watkins 1961
"We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person 'to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion.' Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against nonbelievers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs."
Hugo Black's holding - Torcaso v. Watkins 1961
"Every person in the least conversant in the history of mankind, knows what dreadful mischiefs have been committed by religious persecutions. Under the color of religious tests, the utmost cruelties have been exercised. Those in power have generally considered all wisdom centred in themselves; that they alone had a right to dictate to the rest of mankind; and that all opposition to their tenets was profane and IMPIOUS."
Iredell
"The consequence of this INTOLERANT SPIRIT had been, that each church has in turn set itself up against every other; and persecutions and wars of the most implacable and bloody nature have taken place in every part of the world. America has set an example to mankind to think more modestly and reasonably--that a man may be of different religious sentiments from our own, without being a bad member of society. The principles of toleration, to the honor of this age, are doing away those errors and prejudices which have so long prevailed, even in the most intolerant countries."
Iredell
"IS there any power given to Congress in matters of religion? Can they pass a single act to impair our religious liberties? If they could, it would be a just cause of alarm. If they could, sir, no man would have more horror against it than myself. Happily, no sect here is superior to another. As long as this is the case, we shall be free from those persecutions and distractions with which other countries have been torn."
Iredell - NC Ratifying Convention
"I consider the clause under consideration as one of the strongest proofs that could be adduced, that it was the INTENTION of those who formed this system to establish a general religious liberty in America. Were we to judge from the examples of religious tests in other countries, we should be persuaded that they do not answer the purpose for which they are intended."
Iredell - NC Ratifying convention
"IF any future Congress should pass an act concerning the religion of the country, it would be an act which they are not authorized to pass, by the Constitution, and which the people would not obey. Every one would ask, "Who authorized the government to pass such an act? It is not warranted by the Constitution, and is barefaced usurpation." The power to make treaties can never be supposed to INCLUDE a right to establish a foreign religion among ourselves, though it might authorize a toleration of others."
Iredell - NC Ratifying convention
"[I]t is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. . . . Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? That the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?"
James Madison
"the civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext INFRINGED."
James Madison
"liberty protects the person from unwarranted government intrusions into a DWELLING or other private places."
Lawrence v Texas
"The principle that government may accommodate the free exercise of religion does not supersede the fundamental LIMITATIONS imposed by the Establishment Clause. It is beyond dispute that, at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which "establishes a [state] religion or religious faith, or tends to do so." ...Everson v. Board of Ed (1947). The State's involvement in the school prayers challenged today violates these central principles."
Lee v. Weisman 1992 - J. Kennedy
"The sole question presented is whether a religious exercise may be conducted at a GRADUATION CEREMONY in circumstances where, as we have found, young graduates who object are induced to conform. No holding by this Court suggests that a school can persuade or compel a student to participate in a religious exercise. That is being done here, and it is forbidden by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment."
Lee v. Weisman 1992 - J. Kennedy
"We do not hold that every state action IMPLICATING religion is invalid if one or a few citizens find it offensive. People may take invalid if one or a few citizens find it offensive. People may take offense at all manner of religious as well as nonreligious offense at all manner of religious as well as nonreligious messages, but offense alone does not in every case show a violation. We know too that sometimes to endure social isolation or even anger may be the price of conscience or isolation. But, by any reading of our cases, the conformity required of the student in this case was too high an exaction to required of the student to withstand the test of the Establishment Clause."
Lee v. Weisman 1992 - J. Kennedy
"We need not look beyond the circumstances of this case to see the phenomenon at work. The undeniable fact is that the school district's supervision and control of a high school GRADUATION CEREMONY places public pressure, as well as peer as peer pressure, on attending students to stand as a group or, at least, maintain respectful silence during the invocation and benediction. This pressure, though subtle and indirect, can be as real as any overt compulsion."
Lee v. Weisman 1992 - J. Kennedy
"We hold that all evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the Constitution is, by that same authority, inadMISSABLE in a state court. ...[O]ur holding that the exclusionary rule is an essential part of both the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments is not only the logical dictate of prior cases, but it also makes very good sense. There is no war between the Constitution and common sense. Presently, a federal prosecutor may make no use of evidence illegally seized, but a State's attorney across the street may, although he supposedly is operating under the enforceable prohibitions of the same Amendment. Thus, the State, by admitting evidence unlawfully seized, serves to encourage disobedience to the Federal Constitution which it is bound to uphold. ... In nonexclusionary States, federal officers, being human, were by it invited to, and did, as our cases indicate, step across the street to the State's attorney with their unconstitutionally seized evidence. Prosecution on the basis of that evidence was then had in a state court in utter disregard of the ENFORCEABLE Fourth Amendment. If the fruits of an unconstitutional search had been inadMISSABLE in both state and federal courts, this inducement to evasion would have been sooner eliminated.
Mapp v Ohio
"Because it is ENFORCEABLE in the same manner and to like effect as other basic rights secured by the Due Process Clause, we can no longer permit it to be revocable at the whim of any police officer who, in the name of law enforcement itself, chooses to suspend its enjoyment."
Mapps v Ohio
"I am still not persuaded that the Fourth Amendment, standing alone, would be enough to bar the introduction into evidence against an accused of papers and effects seized from him in violation of its commands. For the Fourth Amendment does not itself contain any provision expressly precluding the use of such evidence, and I am extremely doubtful that such a provision could properly be inferred from nothing more than the basic command against UNREASONABLE searches and seizures.
Mapps v Ohio
"Our decision, founded on reason and truth, gives to the individual no more than that which the Constitution guarantees him, to the police officer no less than that to which honest law ENFORCEment is entitled, and, to the courts, that judicial integrity so necessary in the true administration of justice."
Mapps v Ohio
"Reflection on the problem, however, in the light of cases coming before the Court since wolf, has led me to conclude that, when the Fourth Amendment's ban against UNREASONABLE searches and seizures is considered together with the Fifth Amendment's ban against compelled self-incrimination, a constitutional basis emerges which not only justifies, but actually requires, the exclusionary rule."
Mapps v Ohio
"The ignoble shortcut to conviction left open to the State tends to destroy the entire system of constitutional restraints on which the liberties of the people rest. Having once recognized that the right to privacy embodied in the Fourth Amendment is ENFORCEABLE against the States, and that the right to be secure against rude invasions of privacy by state officers is, therefore, constitutional in origin, we can no longer permit that right to remain an empty promise"
Mapps v Ohio
"Something troubling is afoot here. From a constitutional standpoint, the religion of a candidate is supposed to make no difference. Even before the founding fathers dreamed up the First Amendment, they inserted a provision in the Constitution expressly prohibiting any religious test for office. The framers recognized, of course, that a candidate's religion (or lack thereof) would enter political debate, and they were prohibiting only a formal test for taking office. But they were also giving their imprimatur to Jefferson's appealing notion that a person's beliefs about religion were no more relevant to his politics than his beliefs about geometry. ROMNEY, by contrast, was staking his character and values on his
Noah Feldman - What is it about Mormonism?
"Twenty-nine percent of Republicans told the Harris Poll last year that they probably or definitely would not vote for a Mormon for president. Among evangelicals, some of the discomfort is narrowly religious: Mormon theology is sometimes understood as non-Christian and heretical."
Noah Feldman - What is it about Mormonism?
"No union is more profound than MARRIAGE, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family."
Obergell v Hodges 2015
"As a result, the Court invalidates the MARRIAGE LAWS of more than half the states and orders the transformation of social institution that has formed the bases of human society for a millenia..."
Obergwell v Hodges
"But to come to the true principle by which this question ought to be determined: The business of a civil government is to protect the citizen in his rights, to defend the community from hostile powers, and to promote the general welfare. Civil government has NO BUSINESS TO MEDLE with the private opinions of the people. If I demean myself as a good citizen, I am accountable, not to man, but to God, for the religious opinions which I embrace, and the manner in which I worship the supreme being."
Oliver Ellsworth - Landholder no. 7
"In short, test-laws are UTTERLY INEFFECTUAL: they are no security at all; because men of loose principles will, by an external compliance, evade them. If they exclude any persons, it will be honest men, men of principle, who will rather suffer an injury, than act contrary to the dictates of their consciences. If we mean to have those appointed to public offices, who are sincere friends to religion, we, the people who appoint them, must take care to choose such characters; and not rely upon such cob-web barriers as test-laws are."
Oliver Ellsworth - Landholder no. 7
"We are almost the only people in the world, who have a FULL ENJOYMENT of this important right of human nature [religious liberty]. In our country every man has a right to worship God in that way which is most agreeable to his conscience. If he be a good and peaceable person he is liable to no penalties or incapacities on account of his religious sentiments; or in other words, he is no subject to persecution.
Oliver Ellsworth - Landholder no. 7
But in other parts of the world...[s]ystems of religious error have been adopted, in times of ignorance. It has been the interest of tyrannical kings, popes, and prelates, to maintain these errors. When the clouds of ignorance began to vanish, and the people grew more ENLIGHTENED, there was no other way to keep them in error, but to prohibit their altering their religious opinions by severe persecuting laws."
Oliver Ellsworth - Landholder no. 7
"It must be state at the outset and with clarity that ROE's essential holding, the holding we affirm, has three parts."
Planned Parenthood v. Casey 1992
"But in view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. e. Our Constitution is COLOR-BLIND , and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved."
Plessy v Ferguson
"Everyone knows that the statute in question had its origin ... not so much to exclude white persons from RAILROAD CARS occupied by blacks much to exclude white persons from railroad cars occupied by blacks as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to as to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons."
Plessy v Ferguson
"Haw no tendency to destroy the LEGAL EQUALITY of the two races or reestablish a state of involuntary servitude."
Plessy v Ferguson
"The object of the amendment was undoubtedly to enforce the absolute equality of the TWO RACES before the law.."
Plessy v Ferguson
"The sure guarantee of the peace and security of each race is the clear, distinct, unconditional recognition by our governments, National and State, of every right that inheres in civil freedom, and of the and of the equality before the law of all citizens of the United of all citizens of the United States, WITHOUT REGARD TO RACE."
Plessy v Ferguson
"We cannot say that a law which authorizes or even requires the separation of the TWO RACES in public conveyances is unreasonable.."
Plessy v Ferguson
"We think the enforced SEPARATION OF THE RACES, as applied to the internal commerce of the state [does not deny the colored race]...the equal protection laws.."
Plessy v Ferguson
"The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when "The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same person of another color. If both are not ACCORDED THE SAME PROTECTION, then it is not equal." protection, then it is not equal."
Regents v. Blakke
"But to say that a nondiscriminatory religious practice exemption is permitted, or even that it is desirable, is not to say that it is constitutionally required, and that the appropriate occasions for its creation can be DISCNERED by the courts."
Resource of Oregon v Smith
"Because respondents' ingestion of peyote was prohibited under Oregon law, and because that prohibition is constitutional, Oregon may, consistent with the Free Exercise Clause, deny respondents unemployment compensation when their dismissal results from use of the drug."
Resources of Oregon v Smith
"Because respondents' ingestion of peyote was prohibited under Oregon law, and because that prohibition is constitutional, Oregon may, consistent with the [FEC], deny respondents unemployment compensation when their dismissal results from use of the drug."
Resources of Oregon v Smith 1990
"We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise VALID LAW prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate."
Resources of Oregon v Smith 1990
"The 'establishment of religion' clause of the First of the First Amendment Amendment means at least this: neither neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which laws which aid one religion, aid , aid all religions, or , or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a a person to go to or to REMAIN AWAY from church against person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. in any religion. No person can can be punished for entertaining or professing for entertaining or professing religious religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-, for church attendance or non-attendance. attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to levied to support any religious activities or or institutions, , whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the adopt to teach or practice religion."
Reynolds v US
"..We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the ABORTION DECISION, but that this right is not unqualified, and must be considered against important state interests in regulation.
Roe v Wade
"The decision leaves the state free to place increasing restrictions on ABORTION as the period of pregnancy lengthens, so long as those restriction are tailored to the recognized state interests."
Roe v Wade
"it may go so far as to PROSCRIBE ABORTION during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother."
Roe v Wade
is broad enoughbroad enough to to encompass a woman's encompass a woman's decision decision whether or not to TERMINATE HER PREGNANCY."
Roe v Wade
"encouraging the delivery of prayer at a sERIES of important SCHOOL EVENTS."
Santa Fe School District v. Jane Doe 2000
"no further injury is required for the policy to FAIL a FACIAL challenge."
Santa Fe School District v. Jane Doe 2000
"The notion that the constitution of the US...prohibits the States from simply banning this VISIBLY BRUTAL means of eliminating our half-born posterity is quite simply absurd."
Steinburg v. Carhart
"Our review confirms that the laws in question were enacted by officials who did not understand, failed to perceive, or CHOSE to ignore the fact that their official actions violated the Nation's essential commitment to religious freedom. The challenged laws had an impermissible object; and in all events the principle of general applicability was violated because the secular ends asserted in defense of the laws were pursued only with respect to conduct motivated by religious beliefs. We invalidate the challenged enactments and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals."
The Church of Lukumi v. City of Haileah
"A SUBSTANTIAL OBSTACLE in the path of a women seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability."
Undue Burden Test
"The efforts of the courts and their officials to bring the guilty to punishment, praiseWORTHY as they are, are not to be aided by the sacrifice of those great principles established be years of endeavor and suffering which have resulted in their embodiment in the fundamental law of the land. The United States marshal could only have invaded the house of the accused when armed with a warrant issued as required by the Constitution, upon sworn information, and describing with reasonable particularity the thing for which the search was to be made. Instead, he acted without sanction of law, doubtless prompted by the desire to bring further proof to the aid of the government, and, under color of his office, undertook to make a seizure of private papers in direct violation of the constitutional prohibition against such action."
Weeks v US
"It is true that activities of individuals, even when religiously based, are often SUBJECT TO REGULATION by the States in the exercise of their undoubted power to promote the health, safety, and general welfare, or the Federal Government in the exercise of its delegated powers. But ...there are areas of conduct protected by the Free Exercise Clause..., and thus beyond the power of the State to control, even under regulations of general applicability...."
Wisconsin v Yoder
"The action of the Court finds no support in the rule that decision of Constitutional issues should be avoided wherever possible. For, in overruling Wolf, the Court, instead of passing upon the validity of Ohio's § 2905.34, has simply chosen between two Constitutional questions. Moreover, I submit that it has chosen the more difficult and less appropriate of the two questions. The Ohio statute which, as construed by the State Supreme Court, punishes knowing possession or control of obscene material, irrespective of the purposes of such possession or control (with exceptions not here applicable) ... and irrespective of whether the accused had any reasonable opportunity to rid himself of the material after discovering that it was OBSCENE, ... surely presents a Constitutional question which is both simpler and less far-reaching than the question which the Court decides today."
dissent - Mapps v Ohio
"The effect of the Fourth Amendment is to put the courts of the United States and Federal officials, in the exercise of their power and authority, under limitations and restraints as to the exercise of such power and authority, and to forever secure the people, their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against all unreasonable searches and seizures under the guise of law. This protection reaches all alike, WHETHER r accused of crime or not, and the duty of giving to it force and effect is obligatory upon all intrusted under our Federal system with the enforcement of the laws."
weeks v US
