Preface to Freedom of Conscience and Religion

Resource type
Author/contributor
Title
Preface to Freedom of Conscience and Religion
Abstract
An introduction to a general discussion of the Canadian courts' approach to religious freedom, which argues among other things that despite their formal commitment to state neutrality in religious matters, the courts have applied this requirement selectively - sometimes treating religion as a cultural identity towards which the state should remain neutral and other times (when it touches upon or addresses civic matters) as a political or moral judgment by the individual that should be subject to the give-and-take of politics. Behind the courts' uneven application of the neutrality requirement lies a complex conception of religious commitment in which religion is viewed as both an aspect of the individual's identity and as a set of judgments made by the individual about truth and right. The challenge for the courts is to find a way to fit this complex conception of religious commitment into a constitutional framework that that relies on a distinction between individual choices or commitments that should be protected as a matter of individual liberty, and individual attributes or traits that that should be respected as a matter of equality.
Genre
SSRN Scholarly Paper
Archive ID
2493863
Place
Rochester, NY
Date
2014-02-09
Accessed
9/10/23, 8:16 PM
Language
en
Library Catalog
Social Science Research Network
Citation
Moon, R. (2014). Preface to Freedom of Conscience and Religion (SSRN Scholarly Paper 2493863). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2493863
Author / Editor