Arkansas Law Review Volume 69 | Number 4 Article 3 January 2017 What Good Is Religious Freedom? Locke, Rand, and the Non-Religious Case for Respecting It Tara Smith Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/alr Part of the Religion Law Commons Recommended Citation Tara Smith, What Good Is Religious Freedom? Locke, Rand, and the Non-Religious Case for Respecting It, 69 Ark. L. Rev. 943 (2017). Available at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/alr/vol69/iss4/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arkansas Law Review by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact
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[email protected]. What Good Is Religious Freedom? Locke, Rand, and the Non-Religious Case for Respecting It Tara Smith∗ “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” Justice Robert Jackson1 I. INTRODUCTION Religious freedom is in the limelight. In recent years, religiously inspired violence has slaughtered thousands around the world and provoked calls for the repression of adherents of various faiths.2 Domestically, we have shrill debates: Should bakers be compelled to serve at gay weddings when they have religious objections to doing so?3 Should government officials be compelled to facilitate gay marriages when they have religious ∗ I am grateful to Onkar Ghate, Steve Simpson, Greg Salmieri, Robert Mayhew, and Kevin Douglas for helpful discussion as I formulated many of the ideas addressed in the paper, and to my Research Assistants Sam Krauss, Simone Gubler, and Zach Blaesi.