Links: Worldlii
Coram: Aldisert, Adams and Hunter, Circuit Judges
United States Court of Appeals – Third Circuit. The court considered whether the programme of teaching transcendental meditation and its associated Science of Creative Intelligence was a religious activity and so was not to be allowed to be taught in state schools.
Held: It was such. Judge Adams, said that religion bore the same meaning in that context as in the free exercise of religion clause of the Constitution, noting that the law had moved towards a broader approach in recognition of the fact that adherence to the traditional definition would deny religious identification to the faiths adhered to by millions of Americans.
Adams J thought that it wa one thing to conclude ‘by analogy’ that a particular group of ideas is religious; it was quite another to explain what indicia are to be looked at in making such an analogy and justifying it. He identified three such indicia.
The first was that the belief system is concerned with the ultimate questions of human existence: the meaning of life and death, mankind’s role in the universe, the proper moral code of right and wrong. The second was that the belief system is comprehensive in the sense that it provides an all-embracing set of beliefs in answer to the ultimate questions. The third was that there were external signs that the belief system was of a group nature which could be analogised to accepted religions. Such signs might include formal services, ceremonial functions, the existence of clergy, structure and organisation, and attempts at propagation. These indicia were not to be thought of as a final test for a religion. Rather, they were features which recognised religions would typically exhibit.
This case is cited by:
- Cited – Hodkin and Another, Regina (on The Application of) -v- Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages SC (Bailii, [2013] UKSC 77, [2013] WLR(D) 492, [2014] PTSR 1, [2014] 1 AC 610, [2014] 1 All ER 737, [2014] 2 WLR 23, [2014] 1 FCR 577, WLRD, Bailii Summary, UKSC 2013/0030, SC Summary, SC)
The appellants sought to be married in their regular church in London. The minister would be pleased to perform the ceremony, but church to which they belonged was part of the Church of Scientology, and had been refused registration under the 1855 . .