Presumably a political party could do the same and probably lots of other ideological organizations could too given the Boy scout decision resting on freedom of ideological non- association. Marc
From: Finkelman, Paul <paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu> [mailto:paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu] Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 09:09 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> Subject: RE: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and religion Marci: Presumably there is a free exercise right to expel people from your church for having the wrong political ideas. So, I suppose if the church leaders say "you must support candidate x" and a member does not, and openly supports "y" then it is a free exercise right for the Church to expel the member. ************************************************* Paul Finkelman, Ph.D. President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law Albany Law School 80 New Scotland Avenue Albany, NY 12208 518-445-3386 (p) 518-445-3363 (f) paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu<mailto:paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu> www.paulfinkelman.com<http://www.paulfinkelman.com> ************************************************* ________________________________ From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] on behalf of Marci Hamilton [hamilto...@aol.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 8:51 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Cc: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and religion Ok, I'll bite. Why is an anti-coercion statute obviously unconstitutional? Marci On Jan 24, 2012, at 4:45 PM, "Volokh, Eugene" <vol...@law.ucla.edu<mailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu>> wrote: An Arkansas 1891 statute: “No person shall coerce, intimidate or unduly influence, any elector to vote for or against the nominee of any political party, or for or against any particular question or candidate, by any threat or warning of personal violence or injury, or by any threat or warning of ejectment from rented or leased premises, or by the foreclosure of any mortgage or deed of trust, or of any action at law or equity, or of discharge from employment, or of expulsion from membership in any church, lodge, secret order or benevolent society, or by any oath, or affirmation or secret written pledge.” I assume such a statute, as applied to churches, would be unconstitutional today, and might even have generally been seen as unconstitutional back then, though I have seen no cases interpreting it. Interestingly, a North Carolina statute that didn’t mention churches -- “Any person who shall discharge from employment, withdraw patronage from, or otherwise injure, threaten, oppress or attempt to intimidate any qualified voter of the state, because of the vote such voter may or may not have cast in any election, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor” -- was held in 1901 to not be able applicable to expulsion from churches based on a person’s vote. See State v. Rogers, 38 S.E. 34 (N.C. 1901), http://volokh.com/2012/01/23/interesting-old-prosecution-for-expelling-someone-from-a-church-based-on-how-he-voted/ . Eugene _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
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