What are some of the contours of a “right to conscience” as embodied in the assigned SCOTUS opinions? (Use the syllabus’s week one through week five assigned cases from Gobitis/Barnette to Masterpiece Cakeshop.) In your answer, use at least SIX of the assigned SCOTUS cases. You may focus on majority opinions, concurrences, dissents and/or oral arguments or any combination thereof. Drawing on your examples, conclude by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. You may quote from the assigned texts and opinions with simple parenthetical references.
Advice: do not waste space on re-describing the facts of the case. You may assume those are known to the reader. Get right to the analysis; cut to the chase!
Cases you can use:
WEEK TWO (Th 9/9) Right to conscience 1: [Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), West Virginia Board of Ed v. Barnette (1943)], Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), Wooley v. Maynard (1977)
WEEK THREE (Th 9/16) Right to conscience 2: U.S. v. Ballard (1944), [U.S. v. Seeger (1965), Welsh v. U.S. (1970)], Engel v. Vitale (1962)
WEEK FOUR (Th 9/23) Accommodations 1: Reynolds v U.S. (1879), Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), Bob Jones University v. U.S. (1983)
WEEK FIVE T (Th 9/30) Accommodations 2: Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston (1995), Boy Scouts of America v. Dale (2000), Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018)
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