Individual Liberties: A Case Study

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court Case Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) which nationally legalized same sex marriage, the religious right has felt that protections on religious liberty in this country have gone under attack. As the LGBTQ+ movement gains more traction in mainstream media, local municipalities, and even state governments, many religiously conservative states legislatures have begun to fight back by passing laws that protect a person’s right to discriminate against the LGBTQ+ community because of religious objections. While a person’s right to abstain from participating in a business transaction concerning a same sex marriage has been widely debated (and continues to be widely debate) for some time now, the new anti-transgender

Constitution were in favor of the separation of church and state. The founding fathers felt that a man's religion and faith are personal matters and the government had no right be involved in them. Therefore, I believe they wanted all religions to be protected whether Christian or non-Christian. In Thomas Jefferson’s letter, he states, "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that acts of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State." (How to cite in text) This expression has become well known because it is said to explain the "religion clause" of the First Amendment to the Constitution which reads: "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 right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" (U.S. const. amend. I).

In the developing stages of America, many Americans had a very hard time adapting and accepting people of different backgrounds. America has battled the war on our civil liberties all the way from the 1800s until now. The law that was passed to protect the people of the United States from certain things has caused more damage then it was intended to do. America has many loopholes that have given the government many opportunities to violate the civil liberties of people when they feel the country is in any type of danger. In the 1800 and 1900s America was infested with many different types of disease, such as Cholera, Typhoid and Whooping Cough. With the amount of immigrants coming into the U.S, people often blamed them on bringing diseases with them. Many civil liberties were put at risk here because the Americans wanted to protect their nation at any cost. They held people against their will such as Typhoid Mary and the Chinese, treated women and children differently from their male counterparts, and immigrant workers were not treated correctly.

A hot topic in American politics today is the question of civil rights. While a civil right is defined as an enforceable right or privilege, people still have trouble agreeing what should be counted as a civil right. In a recent event, two civil rights that come into contention with each other were gay marriage and religious freedom. A prime example of the conflict was the case of Kim Davis, who denied same-sex couples marriage licenses based on religious freedom. The case showed us that a civil right needs to have limitations so as to not infringe on other constitutional civil rights. In other words, the state should not allow religious freedom to hinder marriage equality. This is what we will examine throughout the

Of the authors above, they often mention personal liberties that groups of people are being denied and how either individuals or groups need to seize up the cause, however, the authors seldom turn to the Constitution and Bill of Rights to justify why these liberties are needed to be provided for all, and what is the authority that gives the people their rights. Several also focused on how it was individual groups that were denied liberties and not personal liberties that all people were being revoked. I am addressing how specific individual rights that are written into laws are upheld, or in some cases failed to be upheld by the institutions that we have put into place to protect the personal liberties of all citizens alike and establish the

In July of 2012, a same-sex couple by the names of Charlie Craig and David Mullins requested for Jack Phillips, the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado, to bake a wedding cake for them. However, Phillips refused to bake the cake due to his religious beliefs about same-sex marriage. Craig and Mullins sued Masterpiece Cakeshop, stating that the shop was violating the Colorado law that prohibits discrimination based off of sexual orientation. Jack Phillips, on the other hand, defends himself, citing the first amendment and religious freedom. The Supreme Court will make the

Civil Liberties: Protecting the interest of public health can sometime override individual rights such as “freedom of movement.” In such case, society must inform individuals of the nature of the threat, be open in explaining the reasons for over-riding individual freedoms and do as much as possible to assist those whose rights are being infringed (Keating, 2016). HIPPA and patient confidentiality may arise: An individual has a right to privacy, but healthcare provider is allowed to disclose protected patient information, if that information lead the provider to believe that the patient poses a serious threat to the health of individual or public (McGlown, 2004). As a general rule, “the privacy and confidentiality of individuals should be protected

The wall of separation between the church and the state has led to many political and social issues within the country. Ever since Thomas Jefferson penned the phrase in his letter, it will always come up when limitations have been pushed too far. It has become a sensitive matter to touch on, especially when it comes to financial affairs. The issue of whether or not tax exemption benefits should be retained among religious institutions continues to be widely debated.

Separation of church and state was an idea that was discussed by the Founding Fathers in 1784 when Patrick Henry “introduced a bill” that called for “state support” of pastors in the “Christian religion” (Davis 474). This bill was defeated by an incredible margin, and Jefferson’s plan to separate church and state was made law in 1876. The Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom is on Jefferson’s tombstone as a very important accomplishment (Davis 475). Impressions are very clear that this separation was strongly desired by the Founding Fathers with such strong opposition to mixing them, as well as other important figures. Church should be completely separate from the state.

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States establishes religious freedom: “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 right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Against the Constitutional background, Thomas Jefferson wrote a Bill for establishing Religious Freedom. The Bill was passed at the Virginia General Assembly in 1777. Jefferson believed that it was not enough to have a Constitutional provision that debars Congress from establishing a religion for all. But it is equally important to separate the Church from the state to guarantee Religious Freedom where each and every one will

Judging from this article from Wall Street Journal, the major conflict that exists in this same-sex-marriage-legalization debate is between the free-speech clause and antidiscrimination law. Technically, the people who refused to offer their service to the homosexual people based on their religious belief were not legally wrong according to the first amendment. However, did the homosexual couples do anything wrong? No, they didn’t. They ordered the same services, and they were willing to pay the same amount of money. What they wanted was nothing illegal. Then here comes the dilemma, how can neither of them be “wrong” in a conflict? So, this paper will analyze the “rightness” and the “wrongness” in an ethical dilemma between civil rights

On the one hand, Koppel and Jones’s mentioning the Fifth Amendment clearly works in favor of the sexual minorities and their right to be married, seeing how in a range of states, legal regulations “ban businesses from discriminating against people based on their sexual orientation” (Koppel & Jones, 2013, October 2, p. A3). On the other hand, making staff provide services to the people whose marriage is contrary to the staff’s beliefs can be seen as the staff’s rights infringement. This duty-based dilemma is clearly one of the hardest to solve. However, of all the arguments, the given one is clearly the weakest, seeing how in the choice between one’s right to be treated equally and one’s right to have personal preferences, the former is obviously the superior one.

For several people, religion is the most important aspect of their life, and they probably inherit the majority of their beliefs and values from their religion. Considering religious freedom being one of the main reasons the United States of America was formed, it is only expected that it would be heavily discussed. In the United States of America, religion is protected by numerous amendments and laws, but what some people consider protection others consider imposition. People begin to wonder if the protection implemented is excessive and if it could possibly be harmful to others. As a result, debates on the issue are formed constantly. A prominent debate in place currently is the debate of whether or not using religious and personal beliefs to deny service to LGBTQ people is unconstitutional has implemented conflict in groups ranging from the LGBTQ community to religious organizations.

Freedom of religion is a fundamental property of liberty. Jefferson, writer or the Declaration of Independence and co-writer of the Constitution, was a huge promoter of religious freedom. In a Virginian bill he drafted in 1777, he proposed that no one should be obligated to, “support any religious worship… [or] suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief…” (1). This simply means the government should not impose a creed and should not disturb an individual from following which ever creed he chooses. This is parallel to the article VI in the Constitution!

Same-sex has been a trending topic for the past few decades. During this time frame, the support of same sex-marriage has risen to 53 percent. Although this is majority, the United States still struggles to find where it stands on same-sex marriage. An important case that shows the injustice treatment same-sex marriage couples go through is found in United States v. Windsor. United States v. Windsor is a case in which the United States Supreme Court held that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of “marriage” and “spouse” to affect only to heterosexual unions, by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) argued that in