ABSTRACT
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution makes inseparable two principles for the one right to religious freedom: The principles of no establishment and free exercise of religion. The free exercise principle serves as a constitutional platform to uplift the fundamental and inalienable right to liberty of conscience for individuals and for groups, while the principle of no establishment shields this liberty from state interference. Challengers of Pennsylvania’s anti-religious-garb law concede that the statute is secular in that it does not advance religion; however, they reject the notion that secularism means antagonism. The historic justification of “avoiding sectarian influence” can sometimes be expressed with the contemporary phrase “religious neutrality.” With a particular concern for public safety, in 2016, a school district in Québec came before the Supreme Court of Canada to justify why the administrators banned a Sikh student from wearing a kirpan, a religious object resembling a small dagger worn under the student’s clothes.
