The Fall of Free Exercise : From 'No Law' to Compelling Interests to Any Law Otherwise Valid
This article is based on remarks made by Prof. Vincent M. Bonventre at an Albany Law School symposium on the current state of religious freedom under Supreme Court jurisprudence. Bonventre surveys the evolution of free exercise protection under the First Amendment. He then criticizes the Supreme Court's drastic dilution of that fundamental right to a mere privilege, subordinate to any otherwise valid legislation, in the Court's 1990 decision in Oregon v. Smith