The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, as one of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.
Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court decided 8–1 in favor of the respondent, Edward Schempp on behalf of his son Ellery Schempp, and declared that school-sponsored Bible reading and the recitation of the Lord's Prayer in public schools in the United States was unconstitutional.
Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1 (2004), was a case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. The lawsuit, originally filed as Newdow v. United States Congress, Elk Grove Unified School District, et al. in 2000, led to a 2002 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are an endorsement of religion and therefore violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The words had been added by a 1954 act of Congress that changed the phrase "one nation indivisible" into "one nation under God, indivisible". After an initial decision striking the congressionally added "under God", the superseding opinion on denial of rehearing en banc was more limited, holding that compelled recitation of the language by school teachers to students was invalid.
Children's rights or the rights of children are a subset of human rights with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to minors. The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) defines a child as "any human being below the age of eighteen years, unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier." Children's rights includes their right to association with both parents, human identity as well as the basic needs for physical protection, food, universal state-paid education, health care, and criminal laws appropriate for the age and development of the child, equal protection of the child's civil rights, and freedom from discrimination on the basis of the child's race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability, color, ethnicity, or other characteristics.
In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The relevant constitutional text is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...
The Free Exercise Clause accompanies the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause together read:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), is a United States Supreme Court case that held that the state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for violating a state prohibition on the use of peyote even though the use of the drug was part of a religious ritual. Although states have the power to accommodate otherwise illegal acts performed in pursuit of religious beliefs, they are not required to do so.
Freedom of religion in Canada is a constitutionally protected right, allowing believers the freedom to assemble and worship without limitation or interference.
Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), was a case decided by the US Supreme Court, which ruled that a state trespassing statute could not be used to prevent the distribution of religious materials on a town's sidewalk even though the sidewalk was part of a privately-owned company town. The Court based its ruling on the provisions of the First Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment.
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296 (1940), is a landmark court decision by the United States Supreme Court holding that the First Amendment's federal protection of religious free exercise incorporates via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and so applies to state governments too.
The Fundamental Rights in India enshrined in part III of the Constitution of India guarantee civil liberties such that all Indians can lead their lives in peace and harmony as citizens of India. These rights are known as "fundamental" as they are the most essential for all-round development i.e., material, intellectual, moral and spiritual and protected by fundamental law of the land i.e. constitution. If the rights provided by Constitution especially the Fundamental rights are violated the Supreme Court and the High Courts can issue writs under Articles 32 and 226 of the Constitution, respectively, directing the State Machinery for enforcement of the fundamental rights.
In the United States, freedom of religion is a constitutionally protected right provided in the religion clauses of the First Amendment. As stated in the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...". Freedom of religion is linked to the countervailing principle of separation of church and state, a concept advocated by Colonial founders such as Dr. John Clarke, Roger Williams, William Penn, and later Founding Fathers such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson.
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination laws. The Court's decision articulated the view that individual liberty is not absolute and is subject to the police power of the state. Jacobson has been invoked in numerous other Supreme Court cases as an example of a baseline exercise of the police power.
Article 15 of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore guarantees freedom of religion in Singapore. Specifically, Article 15(1) states: "Every person has the right to profess and practise his religion and to propagate it."
Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc., 472 U.S. 703 (1985), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that a state statute providing employees with an absolute right not to work on their chosen Sabbath violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
Law and religion is the interdisciplinary study of relationships between law, especially public law, and religion. Over a dozen scholarly organizations and committees focussing on law and religion were in place by 1983, and a scholarly quarterly, the Journal of Law and Religion, was first published that year. The Ecclesiastical Law Journal began publication in 1987. The Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion was founded in 1999. The Oxford Journal of Law and Religion was founded in England in 2012.
Zucht v. King, 260 U.S. 174 (1922), was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court held, 9–0, that public schools could constitutionally exclude unvaccinated students from attending, even if there was not an ongoing outbreak. In the case, the school district of San Antonio, Texas enacted an ordinance that prohibited any child from attending a school within the district unless they had been vaccinated against smallpox. One parent of a student who had been excluded, Rosalyn Zucht, sued on the basis that there was not a public health emergency. Justice Louis Brandeis wrote for the unanimous court that requiring students to be vaccinated was a justified use of "police power" to maintain public health and safety.
Vaccination policy of the United States is the subset of U.S. federal health policy that deals with immunization against infectious disease. It is decided at various levels of the government, including the individual states. This policy has been developed over the approximately two centuries since the invention of vaccination with the purpose of eradicating disease from the U.S. population, or creating a herd immunity. Policies intended to encourage vaccination impact numerous areas of law, including regulation of vaccine safety, funding of vaccination programs, vaccine mandates, adverse event reporting requirements, and compensation for injuries asserted to be associated with vaccination.
Caviezel v. Great Neck Public Schools, 500 Fed. Appx. 16 (2012), is a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upholding the denial of a religious exemption to mandatory vaccination sought by a parent who claimed to adhere to a non-denominational religious view without a formal doctrine.
Lamb v Benoit, [1959] SCR 321 was a legal case that was heard by the Supreme Court of Canada. Lamb, a Jehovah's Witness, was arrested for distributing religious pamphlets in Verdun, Quebec, in 1946, along with three other members of the religion. She was accused by the plaintiff of distributing copies of Quebec's Burning Hate, but the Supreme Court found no evidence of that specific pamphlet being distributed. Lamb was detained for a weekend without access to legal counsel. Local authorities offered to release Lamb if she would not hold them responsible for her detention, but she refused. She was then charged with conspiracy to publish sedition, but this was dismissed by a trial judge and that decision was upheld when appealed. Justice Abbott, a common law justice, concluded that the police officers had violated a Quebec statute through not acting in good faith. She was awarded $2,500 in damages. This was cited by Kent Roach, writing for the University of Toronto Law Journal, as an example that "courts were more generous in accessing damages than they are today under the Charter".
