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Free Exercise Clause Analysis

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The United States a nation that promotes democracy and freedom, that every individual is entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This country’s history is based on people that has emigrated from other countries, especially Great Britain, where the people were escaping, economic, and religious persecution. So when the founding fathers sat down to redact the United States Constitution, they had to make sure, that what they were escaping once, did not happen again, with the new government for the new Nation.
The First Amendment in the constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the …show more content…

But one of the most important cases that helped shaped the State of Utah, was the 1878 case of Reynolds v. United States. At this time Utah was still a territory of the United States therefore it was subject to the laws of Congress. “So the free exercise clause applied. Even so, the Court held that the clause did not allow the Mormons to practice polygamy, although it was beyond dispute that this practice was, for them, religiously motivated. The Court adopted a stark distinction between belief and action. Belief, it said, was absolutely protected, but action was open to regulation. The Mormons were free to believe in polygamy (and, under the speech clause of the First Amendment, to advocate it), but not to practice …show more content…

This is why there will never be a consensus, people think differently and religion influences a person’s life. This being said it is hard for the government to be fully separated from the “church” or in a better way religion. We can see this a lot in politics. It is well known that Republicans are mostly conservatives and that Democrats are mostly Liberals. So religion plays a big part on politics, when it comes to the persuasion of the people. Now some may question how a Nation that does not have a set religion, united, because religion is a form of unity in other countries and

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