Does the Court Review Sincerity?

I found this article by Linda Greenhouse, from the Atlantic via MSN, puzzling. In it she question whether the courts should be evaluating the sincerity of religious beliefs:

It was no surprise back in March when the Supreme Court ruled that Texas had to oblige a death-row inmate’s wish for the company of a pastor who would pray with him and touch him as the lethal cocktail dripped into his veins. Such execution-chamber companionship was “part of my faith,” the inmate claimed, and if anything could penetrate the Court’s wall of indifference toward the death penalty, it figured to be religion. The vote was 8–1.

But there was in fact something unexpected about the decision in Ramirez v. Collier: The lone dissenter was Clarence Thomas. Furthermore, Justice Thomas got it right.

Although I don’t often find myself in agreement with Justice Thomas, I have been hoping for a dissenting opinion like his as I’ve watched the Supreme Court’s majority nurture an expanding theocracy that seems to have no stopping point. Justice Thomas is usually an avid part of that majority. This time, however, he ventured where I can’t remember any other justice, liberal or conservative, having the nerve to go: He questioned a religious claimant’s sincerity. His colleagues had granted relief, he complained, “for a demonstrably abusive and insincere claim filed by a prisoner with an established history of seeking unjustified delay.”

Why did Justice Thomas, of all people, jump off the theocratic bus?

I was surprised that she was surprised. The courts have been considering whether religious beliefs were sincerely held for as long as I can recall but the charges of a “theocratic bus” have been few.

Consider, for example, conscientious objection to military service. In both Sicurella v. United States 1955 and United States v. Seeger (1965) one of the issues considered was whether an individual actually had sincerely held religious beliefs. Or consider the many cases that have been brought regarding religious exemptions for performing abortions or sterilization procedures, e.g. Taylor v. St. Vincent’s Hospital (1973) or Brownfield v. Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital (1989). I’m sure others better informed than I could come up with thousands of examples in a wide variety of areas.

My dad used to complain about lawyers whose only knowledge of the law was the U. S. Constitution. Maybe it’s time to start worrying about journalists whose only knowledge of the law if Roe v. Wade.