On Amicusing Religious Freedom

Over that last decade, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been party to at least 15 Supreme Court amicus briefs.[fn1] (How do I know? I searched Westlaw’s Supreme Court briefs database for “Latter-day Saints” and “Kirton McConkie.” Then I counted back to 2013. There may be more, but I think 15 gives me a pretty good sample.)[fn2]

Of these briefs, three are focused on opposing same-sex marriage. One addresses the definition of “sex” in Title IX. And at least twelve deal with questions of religious liberty (though there is some overlap—a number of the religious liberty briefs deal with religious liberty in the context of laws that limit discrimination against LGBTQ individuals.)

And what does the church say about religious liberty in its briefs? It paints religious liberty as absolutely critical. In its Carson brief, it explains that “the Religion Clauses protect the full range of religious freedom and not merely freedom from official discrimination.” In Groff, the church asserts that “Americans shouldn’t have to choose between their jobs and their faith.”

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Mormon Law 2018 Year In Review

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Jeff Breinholt is an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School, where he teaches a course on prosecuting terrorists. The views in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of his full-time employer, the Department of Justice.

Several years ago, I tried my hand at Mormon blogging as an outlet for some intense legal research I had been doing on modern American religions. I eventually wrote a total of 16 posts for Mormon Matters, which reviewed LDS legal history on several topics, with occasional comparative perspectives from the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists. In late 2009, I wrote a piece entitled “Mormon Law 2009 Year in Review.” Now, a decade on, I decided to come out of blogger retirement and revive this practice with the 2018 Mormon Law Year in Review.  This article offers some comparisons to a decade ago, and focuses on my survey of this year’s judicial opinions containing “Mormon” and its variants. [Read more…]