Opinion ID: 894886
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Heading: The First Amendment Religion Clauses

Text: The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303, 60 S.Ct. 900, 84 L.Ed. 1213 (1940), provides that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. . . . U.S. CONST. AMEND. I. This seemingly straightforward pronouncement has generated volumes of interpretational jurisprudence. At its core, the First Amendment recognizes two spheres of sovereignty when deciding matters of government and religion. The religion clauses are designed to prevent, as far as possible, the intrusion of either [religion or government] into the precincts of the other, Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 614, 91 S.Ct. 2105, 29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971), and are premised on the notion that `both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere.' Aguilar v. Felton, 473 U.S. 402, 410, 105 S.Ct. 3232, 87 L.Ed.2d 290 (1985) (quoting McCollum v. Bd. of Ed., 333 U.S. 203, 212, 68 S.Ct. 461, 92 L.Ed. 649 (1948)). The First Amendment's limitations on government extend to its judicial as well as its legislative branch. See Kreshik v. Saint Nicholas Cathedral, 363 U.S. 190, 191, 80 S.Ct. 1037, 4 L.Ed.2d 1140 (1960). Government action may burden the free exercise of religion in two quite different ways: by interfering with an individual's observance or practice of a particular faith, see, e.g., Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 532, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993), and by encroaching on the church's ability to manage its internal affairs, see, e.g., Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral, 344 U.S. 94, 116, 73 S.Ct. 143, 97 L.Ed. 120 (1952). See EEOC v. Catholic Univ. of Am., 83 F.3d 455, 460 (D.C.Cir.1996). Westbrook and Penley appear to agree that the church-autonomy cases govern the analysis in this case, but they disagree over their effect.