{"id":74589,"date":"2007-10-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-24T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/2007\/10\/24\/a-delicate-balance2\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T04:13:57","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T09:13:57","slug":"a-delicate-balance2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2007\/10\/24\/a-delicate-balance2\/","title":{"rendered":"Limitations on Free Exercise Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 data-is-section=\"true\" data-wp-context=\"{&quot;id&quot;:&quot;polygamy-and-other-early-cases&quot;}\" data-wp-interactive=\"{&quot;namespace&quot;:&quot;prc-block\\\/table-of-contents&quot;}\" id=\"polygamy-and-other-early-cases\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Polygamy and Other Early Cases<\/h3>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Supreme Court\u2019s first decisions concerning the Free Exercise Clause arose from the federal government\u2019s campaign in the late 19th century against polygamy among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) \u2013 also known as Mormons \u2013 in the Utah, Idaho and Arizona territories. In <em><a title=\"Reynolds v. United States\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/1851-1900\/1878\/1878_0\">Reynolds v. United States<\/a><\/em> (1879), the court upheld the successful criminal prosecution of a prominent Mormon, George Reynolds, for practicing bigamy in Utah. Reynolds had argued that it was a religious obligation for him to take multiple wives and that the Free Exercise Clause should immunize him from prosecution. But the court concluded that while the Free Exercise Clause guarantees freedom of religious belief, it does not protect religiously motivated actions \u2013 such as polygamy \u2013 if those actions conflict with the law.<\/p>\n\n<p>[interfere]<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A decade later, in another case that involved polygamy, the Supreme Court reinforced the view that the federal government may suppress religious practices that conflict with the law. In <em><a title=\"Davis v. Beason\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oyez.org\/cases\/1851-1900\/1889\/1889_1261\">Davis v. Beason<\/a><\/em> (1890), the court upheld the conviction of an LDS church member who had falsely sworn a public oath that he did not advocate or believe in polygamy, as was required at the time from persons who sought to vote in the Utah, Idaho or Arizona territories. The right of free exercise, the court ruled in <em>Davis<\/em>, provided no defense to the charge of swearing a false oath, even though Davis himself had not engaged in a plural marriage.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The same year as the <em>Davis<\/em> ruling, the Supreme Court upheld lower court orders that had placed the entire LDS church and all of its property under the control of the federal government on the grounds that the church and its leadership constituted an organization that unlawfully advocated plural marriage. Only after the church firmly and formally renounced polygamy later that year did the federal government relinquish control and restore the church\u2019s property.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Supreme Court\u2019s opinions in <em>Reynolds<\/em> and <em>Davis<\/em>, which rejected the idea that religiously motivated actions were exempt from general laws, remained controlling precedents for more than 70 years. Not until the 1960s, under Chief Justice Earl Warren and his successors, did the court begin to issue decisions that expanded the type of activity protected by the Free Exercise Clause. But even before Warren\u2019s tenure as chief justice, the Supreme Court issued a number of important decisions that began to reshape the government\u2019s role in safeguarding religious freedom.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"small wp-block-paragraph\">Photo credit: Oswald Eckstein\/Corbis<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Polygamy and Other Early Cases The Supreme Court\u2019s first decisions concerning the Free Exercise Clause arose from the federal government\u2019s campaign in the late 19th century against polygamy among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) \u2013 also known as Mormons \u2013 in the Utah, Idaho and Arizona territories. In Reynolds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":294,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sub_headline":"","sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","relatedPosts":[],"reportMaterials":[],"multiSectionReport":[],"package_parts__enabled":false,"package_parts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":false,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[],"tags":[],"bylines":[],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"level_of_effort":[],"primary_audience":[],"information_type":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[464],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[],"research-teams":[517],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-74589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","formats-fact-sheet","research-teams-religion"],"label":false,"post_parent":74575,"word_count":413,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/religion\/2007\/10\/24\/a-delicate-balance2\/","art_direction":{"A1":{"id":92372,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp?w=300&h=200&crop=1","width":300,"height":200,"chartArt":false},"A2":{"id":92372,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"A3":{"id":92372,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp?w=194&h=110&crop=1","width":194,"height":110,"chartArt":false},"A4":{"id":92372,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp?w=268&h=151&crop=1","width":268,"height":151,"chartArt":false},"XL":{"id":92372,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp?w=300&h=200&crop=1","width":300,"height":200,"chartArt":false},"social":{"id":92372,"rawUrl":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp","url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/20\/2012\/07\/delicate-balance_large1-jpg.webp?w=300&h=200&crop=1","width":300,"height":200,"chartArt":false}},"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[{"id":74575,"title":"A 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