UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY

This conference addresses the latest round of conflicts between law and religious conviction. In these conflicts, religious adherents seek exemptions from general legal requirements on the grounds that the requirements would make them complicit in conduct their religion forbids. These are often difficult cases because sometimes the state can recognize the adherents’ rights to freedom of conscience only by risking or harming the equal standing of others in society. Thus Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, the 2014 Supreme Court case mounting a religious freedom challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate, pitted conscience against reproductive rights. And a spate of wedding vendor cases – including Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado, which the Supreme Court is set to decide this term -- pit LGBTQ individuals who wish to marry against business owners who harbor religious objections to same-sex marriage and so want to be released from public accommodations laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

At this conference, law and religion scholars will share work addressing these and related questions. Participants are expected to have read the conference papers in advance. For access to the papers, please email Kim Girman, kgirman@princeton.edu

http://lapa.princeton.edu/content/law-religion-and-complicity