Religious Liberty Justifications for Violence: A Legal Analysis from Kelsey Hazzard at #Rehumanize2022

It's time for a crash course in the legal history of religious liberty! Can a "Satanic abortion ritual" trump pro-life legislation? How does religious liberty impact efforts to protect life in the womb?

Kelsey Hazzard, founder of Secular Pro-Life, provides a valuable introduction to a new frontier in abortion litigation.

Below are the legal opinions cited in the presentation.

Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990)

Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 250 (1993)

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014)

Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944)

Jehovah’s Witnesses in the State of Washington v. King County Hospital Unit No. 1 (Harborview), 278 F.Supp. 488 (W.D. Wash. 1967)

In re Clark, 185 N.E.2d 128 (Ohio Ct. of C.P. 1962)

Hoener v. Bertinato, 67 N.J.Super. 517 (1961)

Learn more about Secular Pro-Life at secularprolife.org.

 

Transcript:

Kelsey Hazzard: Hello everyone and welcome to Religious Liberty Justifications for Violence: a Legal Analysis. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Kelsey Hazard. I am the founder and president of Secular Pro-Life. SPL is an atheist led organization advancing secular arguments against abortion and uniting people of every faith and none to protect prenatal human beings.

I'm really excited about this presentation. Although I am an atheist, I have always taken a strong academic interest in religion. My undergraduate majors were religious studies and psychology, and then I went to law school where I just devoured all things First Amendment. So I wanna thank Rehumanize International for giving me this wonderful opportunity to, to geek out with an audience.

You have probably seen headlines about satanist groups and pro-abortion Jewish synagogues filing lawsuits against pro-life legislation planning that it violates their religious freedom. And maybe you've thought, well, that's ridiculous. You can't just kill somebody and say, Oh, but it's my religion. And if that was your reaction, Your intuition is correct.

I am going to conclude that these lawsuits, these lawsuits ought to fail. But to discuss this issue intelligently beyond just our intuitive reactions requires understanding some key concepts of religious liberty law. So, this session is your crash course. I have five housekeeping matters before I begin.

One, I have a lot of citations. You can find all of them in the most recent post at secular pro-life dot org slash blog. I've also dropped it in the chat, and if you're watching the later recording, there should be a link in the description. Two. A disclaimer. I am a attorney. I am not your attorney.

This presentation is for general educational purposes only. It is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, you should contact a lawyer who's licensed in your jurisdiction to give you advice that's tailored to your situation. Number three, I realized that this conference attracts attendees. From around the world.

In fact, I think I saw a poll earlier that about a quarter of you are from outside of the United States of America. I am focused here. This presentation is specifically about US law. Number four. If you have questions or comments, please put them in the Q and A tab. I'll circle back to them at the end if we have time.

If you put them in the general chat tab, I might miss them. So please use that Q and A tab. Finally, number five. This session is going to touch on quite a few beliefs. Satanism Judaism, Native American Spirituality, Santeria, Evangelical Christianity, Jehovah's Witnesses. In the Immortal words of Stefan from Saturday Night Live,

this club has everything. If you happen to belong to any of the religious communities I just mentioned, I apologize in advance for how cursory and surface level my comments are going. You could devote a lifetime of study to any one of the religions I mentioned, and many people have. We have 45 minutes.

It is what it is. And I'm sorry. So all of those housekeeping matters are done. Let us dive in with a Native American church and the case of Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon versus Smith. That's mouthful. We usually just say employment division versus Smith. Mr. Smith

ingested peyote for sacramental purposes during a Native American ceremony. Somehow his employer, a drug rehab center, found out about that and fired him. He applied for state unemployment benefits and he was denied. Oregon's position was using hallucinogens is illegal in our state. You used them. There is no religious exception, so it's your own damn fault you lost your job.

We're not paying you unemployment. Mr. Smith argued that this violated his first amendment right to free exercise of religion. The case went all the way to the us Supreme Court, and the Supreme