United States of America, Amicus Curiae
Noel J. Francisco, U.S. Solicitor General
The Free Exercise Clause, as incorporated by the Fourteenth Amendment, generally prohibits
discrimination on the basis of religious status in the distribution of public benefits. The framers of the Bill of Rights were well aware that [the British] Parliament and colonial legislatures had denied civil and
political privileges on account of religious status, and they adopted the Free Exercise Clause in part in …