Side of Religion
  by Dr. David Eller

You walk into a fast-food restaurant. You order a burger, fries, and a drink, and your server asks, "Would you like religion with that?" Sound impossible? That is essentially what is happening in the A&W in Frisco, where the owner, a Jewish Messianic Christian pastor, distributes leaflets on the "Jews for Jesus" movement and posts signs advertising chili fries, onion rings, and Jesus.

Aren't people free to exercise their religion? Well, yes they are, although I doubt there is anything in the Jewish Messianic Christian religion about chili fries or restaurant advertising. That is not part of their religion. Nor is there anything in mainstream Christianity about needing to display large granite blocks of commandments. So free exercise is not the issue; people may freely exercise what their religion requires them to. The issue is public courtesy in a shared society.

If I go to a restaurant, or a store, or an office, I expect food, or goods, or business. I do not go looking for religion, and I don't want to see one. It is presumptuous and invasive to impose your religion in everyone else's face, especially since you know that not everyone shares it with you. This is the problem with all public expressions of religion, whether it is signs at A&W, commandments displays, or Hobby Lobby and Chik-Fil-A closing on Sundays to observe the Christian sabbath.

Again, what can be the harm? Actually, plenty, as the Supreme Court has discovered. What if you are a Jew or Seventh Day Adventist working at Hobby Lobby, let alone Frisco A&W? You have to rest on "their" sabbath but you have to work on your own. This very problem led to the 1961 Braunfeld v. Brown case, where Jewish merchants complained about having to close on Sunday when their sabbath is Saturday, and the 1963 Sherbert v. Verner case, where a Seventh Day Adventist was fired for refusing to work on her sabbath. And sabbaths are just part of the problem. Courts have had to hear cases about marriage (Reynolds v. United States on Mormon's "freedom to exercise" their polygamy), the Pledge of Allegiance (Minersville School District v. Gobitis on Jehovah's Witnesses right to abstain), mandatory school attendance (Wisconsin v. Yoder on Amish rights to absent themselves from public education), peyote use (Oregon Employment Division v. Smith on "freedom to exercise" Native American religion), animal sacrifice (Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah on "freedom to exercise" santeria), and many others.

And the future holds more such complaints in store. What if a Muslim employee wanted to take the month of Ramadan off? Or wanted to take five breaks a day to pray? Or what if a Muslim or Jew or Buddhist or Hindu or anyone else was offended by Jesus signs at A&W? They could just eat or work at another restaurant, right? So we would have Christian restaurants and Jewish restaurants and Muslim ones, etc., each hiring and serving their own kind. In other words, we would have a religiously divided society-like the Bush administration's "faith-based initiative" makes explicitly legal.

The problem is simple: there are many different religions but only one common public life. Best to keep religion out of it so we can all feel included in every facet of our society.

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