Differences Between The First Amendment And Establishment Clause

In the First Amendment, there are two clauses that can be applied to religion. The two clauses are the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. The Establishment Clause prohibits the establishment of a religion by Congress. Essentially, there will be no “official religion” forced upon the citizens. The Free Exercise Clause allows people to freely take part in any religion and partake in religious rituals. There are multiple cases where these First Amendment clauses are used in an official decision. The Engel v. Vitale case was brought up when a number of public school families saw the opening school prayer as unconstitutional. In these public schools, they started their day with the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a prayer. The prayer itself was created by the
Smith was a case involving the use of drugs in religious ceremonies. Two Native Americans worked in a private drug rehabilitation organization and ingested peyote as part of their religious ceremonies. The two were eventually fired for possession of peyote, which was a crime under Oregon law. They filed a claim for unemployment compensation, but were denied compensation because their unemployment was a result of ‘misconduct’. Although the two Native Americans lost their battle, the Oregon Supreme Court was asked to determine whether or not use of illegal drugs when related to religious activities violated their state laws. They decided that use of illegal drugs was not allowed in any settings, including religious settings, but they also saw that this law violated the Free Exercise Clause. Later in the future, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, with the purpose of preventing the creation of laws that burden free exercise of religion. After this Act was deemed unconstitutional, Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which gave special privileges to religious land