The battle over religious freedom: Court decisions and the religious economy in the United States

Throughout the late 1980\u27s and into the 1990\u27s, there has been growing concern over how the judiciary has interpreted the First Amendment\u27s religious freedom clause. The 1990\u27s opened with the controversial Supreme Court decision of Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith, a ruling that many contended dispelled with the compelling interest test and gave courts considerable discretion to regulate on cases of religious freedom. These recent actions caught the attention of legal scholars, social scientists, and religionists, who then pointed to a supposed trend in which the courts were becoming less deferring and more limiting of religious freedoms. Key cases were often cited as examples of how the courts had become predisposed to limiting religious freedoms. The problem, however, was that there was little empirical evidence to verify that this was true; it was difficult to tell if the often-cited, high profile cases were typical of the numerous cases that came before all levels of the judiciary each year. Using data from court cases on religious freedom from 1981 to 1996, this research explores, and then explains, the extent to which the courts actually assumed a role of increased regulation over the religious economy in the U.S. First, it provides empirical verification to the substantive literature that charged the judiciary with becoming less deferring and more limiting of religious freedoms. Second, it contributes to rational choice theory by adding to supply-side explanations of religious change. Results indicate that the substantive literature was accurate, and evidence from multivariate analyses supports the theory that the courts play a powerful role in regulating the religious economy. The implication is that court actions can restrict the supply of available religions and curtail the activities of existing religious organizations. It also suggests that the judiciary has the potential to constrain religious choice, suppress religious competition, and reduce the overall level of religious activity in the U.S