4 ms·
The district offered to let her wear a badge that didn't have an rfid tag but she still refused. This case had nothing to do with rfid tags. The district said s
by pilom 14y ago
The district offered to let her wear a badge that didn't have an rfid tag but she still refused. This case had nothing to do with rfid tags. The district said she had to wear an id badge and she refused saying that the badge represented the mark of the beast. If anything this is a freedom of religion case not an rfid case.
- Osiris 14y agoThat seems the be the argument: “By declaring Andrea Hernandez’s objections to be a secular choice and not grounded in her religious beliefs, the district court is placing itself as an arbiter of what is and is not religious. This is simply not permissible under our constitutional scheme, and we plan to appeal this immediately,” the institute said in statement.
- canttestthis 14y agoWhere do you draw the line as to what can be considered to be a fair religious objection? Any thing can be interpreted to be the "Mark of the Beast".
- krichman 14y agoI guess then, assuming the appeal works, schools cannot force students to wear arbitrary things. Would that be so awful? On the contrary, a legal precedent like that would be ideal.
- illuminate 14y ago"schools cannot force students to wear arbitrary things" But schools can.
- hayksaakian 14y agoYeah what the fuck? Since when can the government qualify the religousness of my beliefs?
- alexqgb 14y agoRelax, they don't. The well-worn litmus test in these cases is whether the law was written to target religious conduct in particular (e.g. Sikhs can't wear turbans in public) versus a law that applies indiscriminately (like the speed limit) that some people try to evade "on religious grounds." Obviously, the entire edifice of the law would collapse if anyone could exempt themselves from any part of it on the authority of their own incontrovertible say-so.
- eropple 14y agoSince its inception? There is a massive amount of case law defining what is and is not protected based on religiosity (and numerous other classes). Determining what is and is not constitutionally protected is one of the primary purposes of the judicial system in America.
- rprasad 14y agoThis is what the institute said. It is not the logic the court used when tossing her case. Religious liberty has limits. The government is merely required to make reasonable accomodations for religion; it is not required to bend over for religion. Importantly, the use of id badges/bracelets was wholly secular (i.e, no religious or antireligious purposes.) The school offered, as a reasonable accomodation, for the girl to wear a normal id badge without any sort of rfid or other technology. There were no further accomodations the school could reasonably make without burdening everyone else: the teachers, administrators, her fellow students. Thus, requiring further accomodation for her religious beliefs was not reasonable. After all, the girl has the option of going to private school if she truly believes that a simple id badge is against her religion.
- Osiris 14y agoYes, I realize that was what the institute said. My point was showing that the argument they (the girl and her supporters) were making was not about RFID but about freedom of religion.