Court Opinion

ID: 8878068
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 19:43:50.359908+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:06:28.996300
License: Public Domain

MARIS, Circuit Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur with the opinion of the court in holding that the federal courts have power to review the substantive elements of the military proceedings under which Brown was denied discharge from the Army as a conscientious objector. But I cannot agree that upon such review the denial of his discharge must be upheld. For I think that the military authorities made a basic error in concluding that the fact that Brown’s pacifist beliefs were based on contacts with or influences made upon him by pacifist persons and organizations was evidence that they were necessarily not religious beliefs. Quite the contrary may very well have been the case. For it can hardly be denied that the pacifist position of opposition to war stems from the Divine commands not to kill but to love one’s enemies and that through the centuries most of those who have taken the pacifist position have done so on the basis of their religious beliefs. Indeed recognition of this fact is the basis of the exemption from military service and training which is granted by the Selective Service Act to conscientious objectors. As to the broad meaning of religious belief in this connection see United States v. Seeger, 1965, 380 U.S. 163, 85 S.Ct. 850, 13 L.Ed.2d 733.
It is true, of course, that there are pacifists who are motivated solely by political, sociological or philosophical views. But it is quite erroneous to assume, as the military authorities did in Brown’s case, that pacifist persons are necessarily not religiously motivated and that organizations supporting the pacifist position are necessarily organized and led by persons whose pacifist views stem from other than religious conviction, and to conclude from that assumption that the contacts with Brown and influences upon him by such persons and organizations did not involve religious grounds of opposition to war. On the contrary I believe it to be a fact that in this country most pacifists are religiously motivated, as the Seeger case defines such motivation, and that most organizations supporting the pacifist position are largely composed of and led by individuals so motivated. The military authorities had before them no evidence as to the actual basis of the pacifist beliefs of the persons and organizations with which Brown was in contact or as to the nature of the views which they expressed to him. Since their erroneous assumption that these must necessarily have been nonreligious infects the whole record and obviously influenced their decision, I would reverse.