Beliefs

To the Editors of The Crimson:

J. Andrew Mendelsohn's November 5 article, "Sincere Censorship," attacks the longstanding First Amendment doctrine that government may prohibit or burden the free exercise of a person's sincere religious beliefs only when necessary to achieve a compelling governmental interest. Discussing the recent Tennessee court ruling against a school district that suspended students who refused to read certain textbooks on religious grounds, Mendelsohn condemns the court for examining the sincerity, not the merits, of the religious beliefs involved. He contends that courts hearing free exercise claims should evaluate the "coherence" of religious beliefs, determine whether they are compatible with the outside world or "in the wrong," and judge them in "the societal context." Mendelsohn forgets, however, that our Constitution's highest guarantee ensures our right to hold beliefs which defy the societal context, which others hate or cannot understand, and which challenge the foundations of prevailing systems of belief.

The Supreme Court has heard free exercise cases brought by a variety of claimants. The Court noted in 1944 that "men may believe what they cannot prove. They cannot be put to the proof of their religious doctrines." In 1981, it reiterated: "Religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others," and need not be articulated with "clarity or precision."

Mendelsohn does not say which, if any, of these beliefs the Court should have rejected as incoherent, or how, for example, he would evaluate Catholic beliefs on transubstantiation, Jewish beliefs on dietary restrictions, or the religious holidays of various groups. Without a word of explanation, however, he does tell us that Protestant fundamentalism flunks his coherence test. The arbitrariness of this pronouncement is compounded by his failure to offer any theological criteria that courts could use to determine the coherence of religious beliefs.

If implemented, Mendelsohn's suggestions would undoubtedly lead to a judicially prescribed religious orthodoxy, with the potential for discrimination against believers of any persuasion. To guard against just this eventuality, the Supreme Court has declared that "no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in matters of politics, nationalism, religion, or other matter of opinion." Alan D. Viard, GSAS   Bill O'Keefe, Kennedy School   Stephen Sally, GSAS