Also known as: religious observances and practices · religious observance · religious practice
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Conduct that embodies the expression or fulfillment of sincerely held religious beliefs. This category extends beyond formal rituals to include moral or ethical commitments treated with the force of traditional religious views. Protection attaches when government action singles out such conduct for adverse treatment rather than applying neutral rules of general applicability.
Roger Ramirez belongs to a religious group whose central rite requires the slaughter of chickens by a specific method. The city enacts an ordinance that prohibits only that method while permitting comparable secular killings for food. Because the ordinance was enacted to suppress the religious practice, strict scrutiny applies and the ordinance fails.
Riley Rivera works at a factory that begins producing tank turrets. His religious convictions prohibit any participation in weapons production. When he resigns rather than violate his beliefs, the state denies unemployment benefits. The denial places substantial pressure on Rivera to abandon his religious observance and therefore burdens protected practice.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Ryan Roberts and his family own a closely held corporation whose religious beliefs forbid certain contraceptive methods. Federal regulations require the company health plan to cover those methods. Compliance would force the owners to facilitate conduct their religion condemns, burdening their religious observance and practice.
Raphael Rivera’s town maintains a large cross on public land that commemorates local war dead. The cross has stood for decades without government endorsement of any particular faith. Challengers claim the display coerces religious observance, but the long-standing, passive character of the monument does not impose the kind of burden that triggers strict scrutiny of religious practice.
Rina Rahman participates in a Native American Church ceremony that requires ingestion of peyote. Her employer fires her for violating its drug policy. The state then denies unemployment benefits under a neutral, generally applicable misconduct rule. Because the rule does not target religious practice, the denial does not violate the Free Exercise Clause.
Rowan Russell teaches religion and leads prayer at a religious elementary school. The school terminates her after she develops a conflicting personal belief. Because her role involves the transmission of religious doctrine, the ministerial exception bars her discrimination claim and protects the school’s authority over religious observance and practice.
Section 701(j) states that religion includes all aspects of religious observance and practice as well as belief. The definition reaches moral or ethical beliefs sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views. Courts therefore treat a wide range of conduct as protected when it flows from such convictions.
A neutral law of general applicability does not violate the Free Exercise Clause even if it incidentally burdens religious observance. Strict scrutiny applies only when the government targets religious conduct or fails to remain neutral and generally applicable. Selective exemptions for secular conduct while denying comparable religious ones can demonstrate targeting.
Title VII requires reasonable accommodation unless the employer shows undue hardship. The statute expressly includes observance and practice within the definition of religion. An employer that offers no accommodation and cannot prove hardship violates the duty to avoid religious discrimination.
…the compensation fund, and since that purpose was inadequate to justify the burden that disqualification imposed on respondents’ religious practice. Citing our decisions in Sherbert v. Verner , 374 U. S. 398 (1963), and Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div. , 450 U. S. 707 (1981), the court concluded that…