Jean makes an important point here when she states,
"I'm thinking that should a parent choose to take a vow of poverty, they
should be required to perform community service in lieu of child
support. Give back to the community that is supporting their child."
The state's interest here isn't making sure that a child receives
adequate food and shelter. That can be provided by the state. The
state's interest is money. Similarly, those of us who support religious
exemptions want the religious individual to be free to follow his or her
conscience -- but we are not particularly interested in providing a
religious individual secular benefits incidental to the granting of an
exemption. One way to simultaneously offset the state's increased costs
and reduce the secular benefit resulting from an exemption is to require
the religious individual to do community service -- or some other action
that serves the public good and disgorges the secular benefit he or she
has received.
Shameless plug. I have an article coming out soon exploring this general
issue in more depth.
Alan Brownstein
On Aug 14, 2006, at 12:30 PM, Volokh, Eugene wrote:
> Well, recall that under Thomas v. Review Board, you don't need
> an "official" belief of any well-established religious group -- a
> person's idiosyncratic religious belief, if held sincerely, would
> qualify. We thus can't simply say there's no substantial burden in
> such
> cases, I think, though a strict scrutiny argument would always be
> available.
>
> As to the argument that strict scrutiny is satisfied because
> otherwise the burden of supporting the child would fall on the
> government, and that would violate the Establishment Clause: Can that
> be consistent with Sherbert, where the government was in fact required
> to support someone who for religious reasons refused to take a job
> that
> would support herself? The Court faced an Establishment Clause
> argument
> there, and rejected it.
Good points, Eugene. So conscience is the key here, not necessarily
religious believe. How does one prove sincerity of belief--is it the
government's responsibility to disprove sincerity of belief, or is it
the plaintiff's responsibility to prove sincerity? I'm ignorant of
"strict scrutiny"; I'm understanding that Washington State provides
for individual cases in its constitution, and make exceptions?
I'm still not convinced that Sherbert applies here: Again, I'll
plead ignorance of the case--did the plaintiff have children to
support? Frankly, I know I'm working this backwards. I believe that
regardless of sincere religious conviction, a parent (regardless of
gender) should be not be relieved of the burden of financial
responsibility to their child. I'm thinking that should a parent
choose to take a vow of poverty, they should be required to perform
community service in lieu of child support. Give back to the
community that is supporting their child.
If that parent's right to strict scrutiny is being denied, by all
means, that needs to be rectified.
Jean Dudley.
And thank you for educating me so far.
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