More on the Free-Exercise Clause and Religious Exemptions

Despite a pair of recent responses by Ramesh Ponnuru and another by Professor Vincent Philip Muñoz, we continue to view the original understanding of the Constitution's free-exercise clause to require exemptions to otherwise generally applicable laws except under certain conditions, such as harm to individuals, danger to the public, or the infringement of equal rights. We read the clause that way because the Founders saw free exercise as a natural right, and thus their understanding of the breadth and limits of natural rights must be read into the understanding of the breadth and limits of the free-exercise clause.