Today in Supreme Court History: November 6, 1989

11/6/1989: Employment Division v. Smith argued.

Employment Division of Oregon

 

Comments

[Cal Cetín]

He should have won the case and gotten a big payout.

Ha ha, get it, payout - peyote.

So it's not funny, is it? OK, Dorothy Parker, *you* think of some clever comment.

[JasonT20]

I wonder how Scalia would gone on that same question had, say, the Little Sisters or Hobby Lobby case come up at that time. Would he have still said that the Free Exercise Clause wouldn't have exempted them from having to follow generally applicable law, when there would have been no RFRA to fall back on?

[Cal Cetín]

Who knows - we're still trying to recover from this particular Scalia mistake, without speculating on the misdeeds of alternate-universe Scalia.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

The mistake was in passing RFRA laws to try to overturn Scalia's obviously correct decision.

[JasonT20]

Exactly. If it is reasonable to hold everyone else to following a law, why should religious belief be a reason to grant an exception? Believe in the right god and you don't have to abide by the law? As Scalia said, that makes everyone a law unto themselves.