Arlan's Department Store v. Kentucky (1962)
Supreme Court Decisions on Religious Liberty
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Background Information
The owners of three retail stores in Kentucky were fined for employing persons on Sunday in violation of a Kentucky statute, and the convictions were sustained in lower courts against their claim that the statute violated the First Amendment, applicable to the States by reason of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Court Decision
The Supreme Court dismissed the case and dismissed the appeal, claiming that there were no substantial federal questions at issue.
Justice Douglas dissented, arguing that the unconstitutionality of Sunday-closing laws is in fact very important:
By what authority can government compel one person not to work on Sunday because the majority of the populace deems Sunday to be a holy day? Moslems may someday control a state legislature. Could they make criminal the opening of a shop on Friday? Would not we Christians fervently believe, if that came to pass, that government had no authority to make us bow to the scruples of the Moslem majority?
Douglas went on to quote his earlier dissent in the McGowan v. Maryland case:
". . . it is a strange Bill of Rights that makes it possible for the dominant religious group to bring the minority to heel because the minority, in the doing of acts which intrinsically are wholesome and not antisocial, does not defer to the majority's religious beliefs. Some have religious scruples against eating pork. Those scruples, no matter how bizarre they might seem to some, are within the ambit of the First Amendment. ...Is it possible that a majority of a state legislature having those religious scruples could make it criminal for the nonbeliever to sell pork? Some have religious scruples against slaughtering cattle. Could a state legislature, dominated by that group, make it criminal to run an abattoir? ...A legislature of Christians can no more make minorities conform to their weekly regime than a legislature of Moslems, or a legislature of Hindus. The religious regime of every group must be respected - unless it crosses the line of criminal conduct. But no one can be forced to come to a halt before it, or refrain from doing things that would offend it. That is my reading of the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause."
Significance
This decision reinforced the earlier McGowan decision that religious traditions can become secular over the course of time. In the opinion of the Court, the origins and long-standing nature of a Sunday Sabbath is immaterial to how its constitutionality should be judged today.
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