ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews the key principles underlying what they take to be the traditional American understanding of religious freedom; an interpretation of what may be afoot with the ministerial exception as defended by the Court in Hosanna-Tabor. Most Americans believed that the new republic would fail without a virtuous citizenry, and that a central source of virtue was religion. They came to accept that religion's contribution to the common good in law and public policy was not through establishments and religious monopolies but through the free and peaceful contention of citizens' moral arguments derived primarily from religion. In Smith, the Court had ruled that neutral laws of general applicability could, in fact, restrict the free exercise of religion. In Hosanna-Tabor, the government argued that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), like the law at issue in Smith, was a neutral law of general applicability and was sufficient to overcome any exemption or ministerial exception.
