My apology for bringing this up again, but I'd like to hear what people
think about it, and I thought it might be a relevant analogy.
In 1998, California banned the sale of horsemeat for human consumption,
based on nonrational aesthetic / moral judgments about the impropriety of
eating horses. Say that a state bans the sale of pork for human consumption,
based on the desire to minimize the risk that people would accidentally eat it
(and thus violate their nonrational religious objections to eating pork), or
that people would be economically pressured by restaurants, food processing
plants, and so on into serving it or even tasting it (as a chef often must when
he's cooking a dish). If the horsemeat ban is constitutional, why wouldn't the
pork ban is constitutional?
Alternatively, say some other religion bans the eating of pigs not
because they are seen as unclean, but because they are seen as especially good
and close to humans -- much the same reason, I think, why some people oppose
the eating of horses. (I've heard it said that pigs are quite intelligent, for
instance.) And say that a jurisdiction bans the sale of pork for food
purposes, because of the influence of that religion. Again, if the hosemeat
ban is constitutional, why wouldn't the pork ban be constitutional, too?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-
> boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Douglas Laycock
> Sent: Friday, April 13, 2012 10:12 AM
> To: 'Law & Religion issues for Law Academics'
> Subject: RE: Accommodation
>
> Ellis West and I have discussed our posts off list, and I may have been
> attacking a
> bit of a straw man. He says he did not mean to suggest that religious
> exemptions
> are generally suspect under the Establishment Clause; he was still writing in
> the
> context of the no-pork policy for the prison menu, which he and I agree is
> not really
> an exemption. I misread, or overread, his later post.
>
> I am inclined to think that the no-pork policy has a secular purpose for the
> same
> reasons that exemptions have a secular purpose. What troubles me about the no-
> pork policy, especially if it were imposed outside the prison context, is
> that it
> seems to force everyone to observe a religious practice. It would be like the
> Sunday closing laws, with the same sorts of arguments about whether it
> imposes a
> religious observance or can somehow be understood as simply a secular rule.
>
> Douglas Laycock
> Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law
> School
> 580 Massie Road
> Charlottesville, VA 22903
> 434-243-8546
>
>
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