Happy Festivus! (For the Rest of Us)

History Channel’s Depiction of the History of Festivus

After a series of rants and tirades on my blog of my political leanings, I thought I’d back off a little and write something a little funnier. Anyways, last December (2010) the great Holiday of Festivus made its way in the halls of legaldom. A convicted drug dealer in California’s Orange County (go figure) declared that he wanted a kosher meal, and double the portions for dinner in prison. The prison told him no and that he would get the same portions and the same meal as every other prisoner. I mean after all, even in California the State prisons are not all you can eat buffets. In order to get his way, the prisoner stated that the prison was infringing upon his religious beliefs, against the devout religion of “Healthism”, he said.

So, the prisoner found a lawyer and took it to court. If it were true, that the prisoner’s religious beliefs required him to eat double portions of a Kosher meal, the judge would have to enforce it under the 1st Amendment. The 1st Amendment states,

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The two relevant portions of the Freedom of Religion section of the First Amendment are at odds with each other. On the one hand, the government shall not make a law respecting (i.e. endorsing) the establishment of religion, however conversely the government may not prohibit the freedom to exercise religion (making laws adverse to it). Through various cases, the Court has basically held that the government shall make reasonable efforts to accommodate religious activity while not endorsing it. In other words, if eating Kosher meals and double portions were actually a part of a religious activity, its likely the prison would have to make reasonable efforts to accommodate him.

So, anyways back to the story. The prisoner took his Kosher-double meals religious complaint to court. The lawyer stated that his religion of “Healthism” made it necessary for the meals. The Judge, knowing the law (which I’ll discuss below) held that “Healthism” wasn’t a real religion or wasn’t a real religious belief. However, apparently the Judge was in a good mood that day because he called the lawyer to the bench and basically said, “pick a real religion and I’ll uphold it” (remember this is California). The quick-thinking lawyer said, “Festivus!”, apparently the Judge is also a big fan of Seinfeld because he upheld the ruling because of the Prisoner’s “deeply” held beliefs of Festivus. Because of this, he now got a double-portioned Kosher meal. Thus George Costanza made himself immortal in the halls of the Orange County judicial system.

Legal Analysis: 

Just so you don’t walk away after reading this and think to yourself, maybe Newt Gingrich was right (read my last article), I’ll give a Reader’s Digest legal analysis of the Orange County Judge’s decision. As I said earlier, the two aspects of Freedom of Religion are a bit at odds with each other, and has led to lots of debate. In fact, even the Founding Fathers disagreed what it meant, Roger Williams intended it to keep the government from corrupting the church, Thomas Jefferson wanted to stop the church from corrupting the government, and James Madison saw religion as one of many different factions that existed and needed to be preserved. So the answer isn’t always an easy one.

George Costanza

While there are lots of different Freedom of Religion issues, the main one here is “What is a Religion” and how does the government chose what to protect? The Court has generally not defined what is and what is not a religion, rather keeping it a broad standard. After all, it is the first right amongst the Bill of Rights, therefore the freedom must be protected dearly. However, limits should apply otherwise you could cite religion as a reason to do almost anything. In a case upholding a ban on the use of Peyote for religious beliefs, Justice Scalia held,

“To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.” (Employment Division v. Smith (1990))

In other words, while this amendment’s liberties are broad, they are not infinite otherwise it would lead to anarchy. Anyways, through various cases, the Court has provided us with steps in determining what is and what isn’t religion,

1. The first step is whether or not it meets this broad criteria of protected religion. The Court held that religious belief is, ” sincere and meaningful [and that] occupies a place in the life of a possessor parallel to that filled by the orthodox belief in God of one who clearly qualified for the exemption.” (from United States v. Seeger (1965)).
2. A second layer to this is that the sincere and meaningful belief need not be rational or its validity provable, but only that the individual genuinely believes it. (United States v. Ballard (1944)).
3. The third step is to determine whether or not they truly believe it. Such things that you look at include but are not limited to, the prevailing doctrine of a larger group (although it has been held that religion is inherently personal, so this can’t be the only factor, see Thomas v. Review Board (1981)), the consistency of your actions, proof that your life abides by this belief, etc…(in other words, courts don’t look kindly upon “recent converts” who have something to gain from said conversation.)

So to apply this criteria to the case at hand, believe it or not Festivus might  be declared a religion if its practice could be proven to be sincere and meaningful to the point it becomes parallel to the position of the orthodox God. However, I believe if this case is decided in most any other state, Festivus doesn’t become a religion, in California it’s a toss-up. However, in my opinion, there is no way that this guy could prove that Festivus was a religion both sincere and meaningful to him. This case wasn’t appealed, indeed it wasn’t all that important. However, if it was, no doubt it would be overturned,( even in California) because even if Festivus could somehow be declared a religion, no way could it be held that he sincerely believed it. Indeed, his lawyer just came up with it while talking to the judge.

But since it hasn’t been overturned, have a Happy Festivus to the rest of us, and if I’m in a California prison I’m becoming a convert. (just kidding).

Sources:

The California Festivus Case

Another Link if you Still Don’t Believe Me that this was a real Case

United States v. Seeger