McDaniel v. Paty (1978)
Supreme Court Decisions on Religious Liberty
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Background Information
Early in American history, laws were enacted in seven of the original states and six other early additions to prevent clergy from holding any public office. One reason given was that they were involved otherwise engaged in an exalted activity and hence should not be involved in the messy world of politics.
Another argument was the issue of the separation of church and state - it was feared that should a clergy member take public office, he (at the time, they were always male) might try to impose his religious views on citizens. At the very least, clergy would have a conflict of interest between what their religious oaths demanded and what the secular interests of government required.
But even early on there were those who did not agree with this - for example, James Madison argued that such prohibitions punished a religious profession with the denial of a basic civil right. Over time, more people were convinced with this argument and came to believe that the separation of church and state was strong enough to protect against any violations. Such laws were gradually eliminated until, by 1977, Tennessee was the only one left - bringing us to this case.
McDaniel was an ordained Baptist minister who was barred from serving in Tennessee's constitutional convention even though he had been duly elected because Tennessee law prevented "Ministers of the Gospel, or priest[s] of any denomination whatever" from holding such publicly elected positions. McDaniel argued that this violated his First Amendment rights.
Court Decision
In a unanimous decision (in which Justice Blackmun did not take part) written by Chief Justice Burger, the Supreme Court found that Tennessee's law forced citizens to choose between exercising two fundamental rights and that the Free Exercise clause did not permit this. As Burger wrote:
The right to the free exercise of religion unquestionably encompasses the right to preach, porselyte, and perform other similar religios functions, or, in other words, to be a minister of the type McDaniel was found to be. ...Tennessee has encroached on McDaniels' right to the free exercise of religion. "[T]o condition the availability of benefits [including access to the ballot] upon this appellants' willingness to violate a cardinal principle of [his] relgious faith [by surrendering his religiously impelled ministry] effectively penalizes the free exercise of [his] constitutional liberties."
While Tennessee may have originally had a legitimate interest in keeping clergy from participation, this interest has not been shown to exist any longer. Safeguards exist to ensure that, if elected, clergy will not create too close an alliance between church and state. The Court noted that there was no record anywhere in America of a clergyperson being less observant of the separation of church and state while holding public office than any secular colleagues.
Significance
The Supreme Court accepted that original exclusion of clergy from public office may have justifiable, but that this was no longer true - thus, it argued that the fact that a practice goes back to the colonial period is not sufficient to allow it today. This principle is not, however, followed consistently - for example legislative chaplains were found permissible almost entirely on the basis of their traditional place.
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