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NightWatcher

(39,343 posts)
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 03:53 PM Jun 2014

I'm going to incorporate and my corporation will exercise it's religious beliefs

The corporation will happen to practice Rastafarianism and the business of my business is the procurement and distribution of religious sacraments to other practicing Rastafari.

The US Government, nor its agents will then be able to prohibit me from exercising my beliefs. (See Burwell v. Hobby Lobby)

I'm going to grow acres of marijuana, our sacrament, and assist other self-identifying Rastafari in obtaining it and I cannot be arrested by the local, state, or federal law enforcement personnel.

Shoot holes in this logic or feel free to self identify as Rastafari and sign up for my service.

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I'm going to incorporate and my corporation will exercise it's religious beliefs (Original Post) NightWatcher Jun 2014 OP
Are you hiring? Rider3 Jun 2014 #1
Let me know when you are up and running !! russspeakeasy Jun 2014 #2
No, you are barking up the wrong tree...... Swede Atlanta Jun 2014 #3
Religious use of marijuana defense prevails in Minnesota Rastafarian case. Nye Bevan Jun 2014 #4
 

Swede Atlanta

(3,596 posts)
3. No, you are barking up the wrong tree......
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 04:05 PM
Jun 2014

The court held in Department of Oregon Human Resources vs. Smith that generally applicable laws such as those that prohibit the possession and use of peyote where the prohibition is not directed at the use of the proscribed substance for religious purposes, were upheld.

So your marijuana would be confiscated and you would be thrown into prison. The applicable laws against possession and use of marijuana were not enacted exclusively or even primarily to prevent its use in your religious practices. As such the generally applicable laws against marijuana are valid and you are in prison.

Be very careful to assume that this decision throws wide open the opportunity to any person or organization to challenge any law on the basis of their religious beliefs. The Court held here that the mandate to provide contraception was not the most narrowly tailored solution to ensuring women have access to birth control. They highlighted the mandate for insurance companies to provide the coverage, free of charge, for non-profit religious organizations as a way to provide the coverage but not force a for-profit employer to pay for the coverage.

Of course the Court knows (or should know) that the employer pays for it anyway in the form of higher premiums but that is just the table game being played.

Nye Bevan

(25,406 posts)
4. Religious use of marijuana defense prevails in Minnesota Rastafarian case.
Mon Jun 30, 2014, 04:05 PM
Jun 2014
Is religious use of marijuana a defense to a marijuana criminal charge? A recent Minnesota Court of Appeals case indicates the answer may be “yes.” In an unpublished opinion, In the matter of the Welfare of J.J.M.A., A13-0295, filed September 23, 2013, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed a juvenile’s delinquency adjudication based on his sincerely held religious belief as a Rastafarian, on a petty misdemeanor marijuana paraphernalia charge.

The fifteen year old boy was a practicing Rastafarian – a religion that has incorporated religious use of marijuana for nearly 100 years. The lower court found him guilty of the paraphernalia charge, despite also finding that “Rastafari is a true religion and that J.J.M.A. has a sincerely held belief in the tenets of that religion,” because he “failed to satisfy his burden of showing that the Rastafari religion requires him to carry his pipe with him at all times.” The Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed that adjudication of guilt, based on the Minnesota Constitution’s freedom-of-conscience clause, article 1, section 16:

The right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience shall never be infringed . . . nor shall any control of or interference with the rights of conscience be permitted . . . ; but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to excuse acts of licentiousness or justify practices inconsistent with the peace or safety of the state.

Minnesota’s Constitution provides more protection for religious freedom than the United States Constitution does. “’This language is of a distinctively stronger character than the federal counterpart’ because it ‘precludes even an infringement on or an interference with religious freedom.’” State v. Hershberger, 462 N.W.2d 393, 397 (Minn. 1990) (Hershberger II).

http://minneapoliscriminallawyer.liberty-lawyer.com/2013/09/24/religious-use-of-marijuana-defense-prevails-in-minnesota-rastafarian-case/

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