Religious Freedom in the United States

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Freedom of Religion: American postage stamp from 1957

In the United States , with regard to religious freedom, the emphasis is on absolute non-interference of the state in the affairs of a religion ( 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America ); in Europe , the importance of religious freedom is more on the non-interference of the state in the religious freedom of Individual, which can go up to the complete religious neutrality of the state ( laicism ).

On the other hand, the United States also protects the religious freedom of the individual and the European states in principle also represent the non-interference of the state in the affairs of a religion, whereby there may be restrictions in favor of other rights. In view of the Christian-based civil-religious elements of American society, it is controversial whether the complete neutrality of the state is actually achieved . For example, the phrase In God we trust is printed or embossed on all US money tokens ; In public swearing- in ceremonies, people usually swear on the Bible - this is not codified, but when an Islamic member of parliament used the Koran for this purpose , this was very much criticized.

history

Religious freedom in the USA goes back to the settler days. New England , for example, was heavily populated by Puritan religious refugees. As a result, they dominated both the state and the church in their settlement areas, with the relevant decision-making bodies mostly being institutionally separate. Positive religious freedom, i.e. the right to freely express one's own beliefs, was resolved for the Puritans through the colonization of North America .

The dominant Puritans, for their part, were now in a position to determine which denomination and religion they wanted to tolerate in their field. Initially, only the Anglicans were tolerated because they were mostly royal officials. Massachusetts, on the other hand, refused to allow people of different faiths such as the Quakers to settle. In 1659 and 1661, a total of four Quakers were hanged for exercising their freedom of religion.

The lawyer and clergyman Roger Williams (1603–1683) is considered to be one of the most important solvers of the confessional conflict . This defended himself unsuccessfully in Boston against the interference of the state in the church and vice versa. Williams was a supporter of the Baptist Free Church and founder of Rhode Island . In 1638 the Baptist Church was consecrated in what is now the capital, Providence . In 1647, in Rhode Island, freedom of belief, independent of the state, and thus the freedom of settlement, regardless of the denomination of a settler, was consistently implemented from the beginning. The priority of positive freedom of belief and thus freedom of establishment over negative freedom of religion , which is valid today in western countries , was implemented for the first time: the right not to have to tolerate people of other faiths in one's own territory was definitely classified as minor.

In Maryland, which was originally Catholic, the (now mostly Protestant) settlers had granted Trinitarian Christians (especially Catholics) freedom of belief in the Maryland Tolerance Act of 1649 .

The supremacy of the Puritans in New England broke the systematic Protestant justification for freedom of belief. The rationalists such as Thomas Jefferson in Virginia jumped into this gap with reference to John Locke . Like the free churches, Jefferson saw in a church a voluntary society of people. Important documents for religious freedom in Virginia are the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776) and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786).

At the end of the 19th century, the member states of the USA were still allowed to give precedence to one denomination, as long as the constitution was not affected by it, i.e. the freedom of belief of those of different faiths was not restricted. The federal courts have been responsible for freedom of belief since the 20th century.

present

Collective Negative Religious Freedom was exercised when the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional prayer and Bible reading in state schools in 1962 and 1963 .

Due to the churches' right to self-determination, they are allowed to give preference to men over women when it comes to employment, although the prohibition of discrimination otherwise applies to employment in the USA. However, this special regulation only applies to pastoral and comparable employees. This also includes the teaching staff who train preachers at church universities. On the other hand, when teaching staff at Christian universities for non-spiritual subjects such as psychology, there must be no discrimination in the area of ​​employment such as the question of wages. The preference of men over women must also be spiritually and theologically justified. If there is any ideological or sexist justification, the courts will judge according to the prohibition of discrimination. An editorial secretary in a Christian publishing house is protected from the prohibition of discrimination because her function is not viewed as carrying out a core church activity. The elimination of all discrimination in the United States is the result of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . Religious freedom is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Family-owned companies were approved by the Supreme Court in June 2014 not to have to offer their employees health insurance benefits under the Affordable Care Act if they covered contraceptive methods that violate the religious principles of the company owners. It was the first time the court applied federal law not only to individuals but also to companies.

literature

  • Timothy L. Hall: Separating Church and State, Roger Williams and Religious Liberty. University of Illinois Press, Urbana / Chicago 1998.
  • Marcia Pally: The Subtle Religion. The Influence of Evangelicalism on Freedom of Conscience, Pluralism, and US Politics. Berlin University Press, Berlin 2008. ISBN 978-3-940432-31-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Markus Löhnert: Does it pay to become a fundamentalist? A religious-sociological examination of Christian fundamentalism in the USA among women against the background of the “Rational Choice Theory” (=  dissertation, Karl-Franzens-University Graz (ethics and social theory) ). GRIN, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-640-85521-6 , pp. 29 f . ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed November 8, 2015]).
  2. ↑ William Warren Sweet: The Way of Faith in the United States. Agency das Rauhen Haus, Hamburg sa [approx. 1951], pp. 76f.
  3. ↑ William Warren Sweet: The Way of Faith in the United States. Agency das Rauhen Haus, Hamburg sa [approx. 1951], p. 83.
  4. ^ Sidney E. Mead: Christianity in North America. Faith and Religious Freedom in Four Centuries. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-525-55407-9 , p. 76f.
  5. ^ Thomas E. Buckley: Establishing religious freedom . Jefferson's statute in Virginia. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville 2013, ISBN 978-0-8139-3503-4 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed November 8, 2015]).
  6. ^ Sidney E. Mead: Christianity in North America. Faith and Religious Freedom in Four Centuries. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-525-55407-9 , pp. 77f.
  7. ↑ Klaus Penzel: The 'post-Protestant era': A look back at the last half century. In: Sidney E. Mead: Christianity in North America. Faith and Religious Freedom in Four Centuries. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-525-55407-9 , pp. 199f.
  8. ↑ Donald A. Balasa: Is Gender Inequality Legal for Religious Organizations? In: John Piper , Wayne Grudem (eds.): The role of man and woman in the Bible . Twice unique - a biblical study. 3L, Friedberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-935188-67-8 , Appendix 3, p. 599 .
  9. ^ Robert Barnes: Supreme Court sides with employers over birth control mandate. In: The Washington Post . June 14, 2014, accessed November 8, 2015 .