I. Introduction

This paper begins with the parallel stories of Dan Seeger and Elliot Welsh, and how the pencil marks they made on draft board forms led to their landmark Supreme Court cases during the Vietnam War. Both men were rejected conscientious objector status because their claims of conscience were declared insufficiently religious. Welsh v. United States, the latter of these cases and decided in 1970, established the “sincerity” test as a precedent for religious rights cases that followed. Later challenges to and extrapolations upon this test came from resistant draft boards and eager academics, from those worried about an artificial legal construction to those anticipating an artificial intelligence with its own conscientious objections to military service. Ultimately, this paper analyzes briefs and opinions, audio from oral arguments, and contemporary scholarship to explain how Welsh v. United States represents the future of religious rights adjudication, as the decision demonstrates a responsiveness to a societal gravitation away from organized religion and toward personalized spirituality.

The last half-century has seen an unmistakable shift from organized religion to broader and less easily defined conceptions of spirituality. Four years ago, the Pew Research Center published a retrospective of their studies regarding religiosity in the United States.[1] Special focus was given to those studies which sought to determine the number of Americans who believe in God.[2] The Center reported a predictable fall in these numbers, but upon self-reflection, did not title its retrospective “American Religiosity on the Decline” or “Fewer Americans Believe in God Than Ever.”[3] Rather, the title was an open-ended question: “When Americans Say They Believe in God, What Do They Mean?”[4] The Center followed this headline with a series of additional questions, probing for specificity:

When respondents say they don’t believe in God, what are they rejecting? Are they rejecting belief in any higher power or spiritual force in the universe? Or are they rejecting only a traditional Christian idea of God—perhaps recalling images of a bearded man in the sky? Conversely, when respondents say they do believe in God, what do they believe in— God as described in the Bible, or some other spiritual force or supreme being?[5]

This last phrase, this stand-in term for a divinity without a definition, is central: “Supreme Being.” This term was beginning to supplant the more specific and Christianized term “God” in the legal parlance as early as the end of the Second World War, but two Vietnam War era Supreme Court cases formalized this change: United States v. Seeger[6] and Welsh v. United States. [7] Both cases concerned men whose respective draft boards rejected their professed relation to a Supreme Being as insufficiently religious to receive conscientious objector status.[8] This note’s analysis will center upon the latter, more inclusive of these cases - Welsh v. United States. Context, challenges, support, and scholarly extrapolations of the decision will be utilized to explain how Welsh represents the future of religious rights adjudication - as the decision demonstrates a responsiveness to the changing American religious landscape regarding belief in a “Supreme Being.” The decision established “sincerity” as the legal principle for religious belief, which is consistent with an established societal gravitation away from organized religion and towards personalized spirituality.[9]

II. The Story of Seeger and Welsh

In his oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Welsh v. United States, the Solicitor General, Erwin N. Griswold, walked the Court through the lengthy legal history of conscientious objection.[10] Griswold argued that from the War of 1812 to the Second World War, there existed a continuity in religious exemptions to military service; such exemptions were traditionally only extended to “recognized religious sect[s].”[11]

But the Vietnam War was unlike any other on Griswold’s list. By 1970, public support of American involvement in the conflict steadily declined for years, especially among an anti-authoritarian younger generation who was most affected by, and protested most vehemently against, the selective service policies of the State.[12] Only five years before Welsh, the Court had unanimously ruled that Dan Seeger, a self-identified non-religious man, could not be compelled to serve.[13] Many of the very same Supreme Court justices who made this decision would later decide the fate of another self-identified non-religious man, Elliott Welsh.[14]

Given this background, it seems obvious that Elliott Welsh should receive the same judgment as Dan Seeger. Indeed, Welsh did eventually win in a 5-3 decision, but the details and differences that caused three of the Justices to vote against him warrant attention.[15] The differences in Welsh’s case reveal developments from Seeger in regard to the legal treatment of personalized spirituality; it was not simply a mere recapitulation of the earlier, precedent-setting decision.[16] The questions asked in oral argument transcripts fifty years ago echo those questions posed by the Pew Research Center in their 2022 study: When these men say they cannot confirm or deny a belief in a “Supreme Being,” what exactly do they mean?[17] What does Seeger believe in that Welsh does not?

The answer to the first question appears in the statute at issue: Section 6(j) of the Selective Service Act of 1948.[18] The Act was an extension of the military draft due to the tensions of the post-World War II climate.[19] The section enumerated the conditions under which one could (and perhaps more importantly for Welsh, could not) petition for conscientious objector status.[20] While identification with organized religion or an established religious sect was not explicitly required by the statute, morality and spirituality of a “merely personal” nature was explicitly excluded, stating how religious training and belief “does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code.”[21] The Act went on to establish the process by which these petitions were made, evaluated, and granted.[22] Perhaps the most important part of this process was a “hearing” by the “local board.” At this hearing, petitioners would complete a form which, though it used the language of the Act, did not originally appear in the Act itself.[23] This form asked the petitioner to sign the following statement: “I am, by reason of religious training and belief, conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form;” then the form asked an open-ended question—“Do you believe in a Supreme Being?”—which was to be answered only with a check in one of two boxes marked “Yes” or “No.”[24]

The language of this Act, its use on these forms, and the open-ended question of belief in a Supreme Being became vital to the Seeger and Welsh decisions. Both men modified these forms—striking out words and adding quotation marks with their pencils—in order to complete them in a way that was more consistent with their personal beliefs.[25] As Justice Black summarized in his plurality opinion:

Seeger could sign only after striking the words “my religious training and” and putting quotation marks around the word “religious.” Welsh could sign only after striking the words “my religious training and.” On those same applications, neither could definitely affirm or deny that he believed in a “Supreme Being,” both stating that they preferred to leave the question open.[26]

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in favor of Seeger set a precedent: belief in a “Supreme Being” was not necessary to receive conscientious objector status.[27] The plaintiff only needed to prove that whatever beliefs he had “occup[ied] the same place in his life as the belief in a traditional deity.”[28]

When Seeger was decided in 1965, plaintiff Elliot Welsh sent a letter to his local board immediately, asking to change his “original answer” to the question of his belief in a Supreme Being.[29] In June 1964, he had marked the box labeled “No;” Welsh asked that this answer “be stricken and the question left open.”[30] This change would, apart from Seeger’s quotation marks around the word “religious,” make Welsh’s form identical to Seeger’s.[31]

But the pencil marks made on these forms cannot fully encapsulate the details and contested differences between these two men’s beliefs. They also do little to contextualize these cases historically; Seeger and Welsh occupied distinct points on the timeline of Vietnam War-Era legislation. Though there were only five years between them, these decisions fell on opposite sides of an important development regarding Section 6(j) of the Selective Service Act of 1948: Congress’ striking of the the reference to Supreme Being from the Act in 1967.[32] Yet local boards acted rather autonomously, and many did not immediately modify their petition, form-filling, and hearing process—an issue that would plague the petition process for potential conscientious objector even after the favorable decision in Welsh.[33] At the Supreme Court level, this removal meant that (if only in a statutory sense) belief in a Supreme Being became rather immaterial to Gregory Welsh’s case.[34]

Despite this amendment, the Act itself still posed the greatest hurdle for Welsh before the Supreme Court. As stated before, not only did Section 6(j) enumerate those to whom conscientious objector status ought to be extended, it also enumerated those to whom conscientious objector status ought to be withheld: those whose objections to war were personalized, arising from “essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code.”[35] When it came to deciding Welsh, both a concurring opinion and a dissenting opinion singled out this explicit exclusion provided by the Act.[36] For Justices Harlan and White, this exclusion perfectly described the source of Welsh’s objections; even Welsh himself had characterized his views as “political.”[37] In a letter to his local board, Welsh stated that he saw the military complex as a waste of human and material resources.[38] This and other statements made by Welsh (and summaries of his beliefs provided by counsel) led Justice Harlan to express misgivings about whether the case should be decided in Welsh’s favor, and even go so far as to say that the Court’s unanimous decision in Seeger, the unanimous opinion which he joined five years earlier, was incorrect.[39] However, Harlan still ultimately concurred in judgment in Welsh, arguing that limiting conscientious objector status only to those who object due to “theistic beliefs runs afoul of the religious clauses of the First Amendment.”[40] Justice White, on the other hand, dissented in judgment, stating that “to include Welsh exempts from the draft a class of persons to whom Congress has expressly denied an exemption.”[41] White’s analysis prioritized Congressional intent and statutory construction based on the direct language of the Selective Service Act explicitly excluding personal moral beliefs; in contrast to Harlan’s legal approach regarding more broadly First Amendment Rights.[42] But the opinions of Harlan and White did not reflect the changing religious landscape of the time. In the early 1970s, Americans were decreasingly identifying as members of organized religions and increasingly identifying as adherents of those “personal moral codes,” [JR1] [EA2] which were excluded by the language of the original Act.[43] These social changes might suggest how the Court’s decision in Welsh might have had more to do with cultural upheavals, as opposed to a strict adherence to the language given in the Selective Service Act of 1948. The plurality decision in Welsh’s favor seemed to recognize the changing relationship between American people to religion, and how it consequently affected the legislatures’ and courts’ changing relationship as well.[44][JR3]  In contrast to the limiting language of “religious training” and “Supreme Beings,” Welsh’s counsel proposed a “sincerity” test in their petitioner’s brief, gesturing to other nations (Commonwealth countries, Scandinavian countries, West Germany, and others) that had created similar provisions.[45] Their brief went so far as to argue that “[s]incerity, alone, is the only constitutionally permissible standard.”[46] The opinion in Welsh reinforced the use of the “sincerity” test, describing how determining whether or not a person’s beliefs could be considered “religious” under the statute depended on “whether the beliefs were sincere, intensely personal, and occupied a place in petitioner's life parallel to that filled by the God of those qualifying for the exemption.”[47] This application of the sincerity test seemingly ignored or consciously overrode the language in the statute at issue; which had specifically excluded any beliefs (regardless of how deeply they were held), of a merely personal nature.[48] Black summarized that both Seeger and Welsh hold political, social, and moral objections to war and therefore fall under the requirements needed to gain conscientious objector status.[49] Furthermore, like Seeger, Welsh’s “moral, ethical, [and] religious beliefs” did indeed “function as a religion in his life.”[50] A decision in Welsh’s favor, therefore, followed Supreme Court precedent.[51] But the Welsh decision not only reinforced Seeger; it set a new precedent. The distinguishing factor between valid and invalid conscientious objector claims became “sincerity” itself, not adherence to an established religion or membership in a recognized religious sect or a system of beliefs with a religious function. This expansion of Seeger in the Welsh decision reflected the changing religious landscape of the United States; personalized spirituality need not mimic organized religion in its function or practice in order to receive First Amendment protection.

III. Challenges to Welsh

Forty-five years after Welsh, the Pew Research Center recorded a new cultural upheaval showing different changes in the American religious landscape: Americans were becoming “less religious,” but at the same time, “the share of people across a wide variety of religious identities who say they often feel a deep sense of spiritual peace and well-being as well as a deep sense of wonder about the universe has risen.”[52] The case and its provisions are more relevant than ever given this continuing shift where personalized spirituality continues to overtake organized religion as a guiding moral force and descriptor of supernatural experience. Yet even decades after Welsh, some scholars disagree with the plurality’s decision, arguing that “sincerity” is an unacceptable alternative to identification with a recognized religious sect when it comes to adjudicating religious rights.

Kent Greenawalt, a scholar writing in 2010, considers the legal definition of religion defined by the sincerity test in Welsh to be “artificial” and “unnecessary.”[53] He first considers the cases of “nonreligious” or “antireligious” individuals with conscientious claims; these individuals, Greenawalt argues, would object to the courts giving their convictions “religious” consideration.[54] He also analyzes the case of religious individuals who might divide their motivations into separate categories of “religious” and “moral”:

What is wrong with treating all claims of conscience as religious? First, we think of some people as nonreligious or antireligious; we cannot deny that these people could have a claim of conscience. Do we want to say that whenever they do, they have become partly religious? And what of religious people in our society? Many sincere Christians experience aspects of moral life that they perceive as only remotely connected to their religious convictions and practice.[55]

To answer this challenge, I would place Greenawalt in conversation with scholar Derek Davis, who, writing five years earlier, makes a distinction between claims that are considered “religious” by their claimants and claims that are considered “religious” for the sake of First Amendment protection.[56] Davis speaks about atheists in particular who objected to a then-recent seventh circuit case, which ostensibly required “atheist groups to pose as ‘religious’ organizations to receive equal treatment.”[57]

Davis makes a valid argument that there is a difference between an individual or group’s self-definition and the (generally more inclusive) definition the Court must use in order to guarantee First Amendment protections to an individual or group. The constraints of legal language in regard to larger cultural issues can sometimes result in clumsy constructions in order to adapt Constitutional provisions to the contours of contemporary society.[58] The language used in Welsh v. United States resulted in one of these constructions; Welsh might have still objected to a “religious” designation, but to obtain conscientious objector status was willing to argue the religious nature of his beliefs before the Court.[59] The legal definition of “religion” was therefore expanded beyond the cultural definition of “religion;” because of Welsh, culturally “non-religious” or even “anti-religious” beliefs might receive the same protections as religious rights.[60] However, not all of Davis’s arguments are quite as convincing. As he traces developments in the legal definition of “religion,” Davis cites three cases from lower courts which endeavored to set up tests to distinguish religious beliefs from philosophical ones.[61] Davis argues that these cases strive to fill the gaps in legal construction left by Seeger and Welsh.[62]

Seeger and Welsh were broad-scope rulings, to be certain. But their generality has a purpose; they used the specific case of conscientious objector status to establish principles which courts could later tailor to other cases in regards to religious rights.[63] In this way, Seeger and Welsh give lower courts and subsequent rulings the latitude to protect personalized spirituality when relevant conflicts arise. The efforts of lower courts to more closely define the provisions of Seeger and Welsh[64] do not support the idea that Seeger and Welsh were anomalies; on the contrary, these efforts demonstrate their lasting legacy.  

IV. Welsh as a Signal for Responsiveness and a Signal for What is to Come

The Pew Research Center began a 2017 questionnaire in a manner very similar to the forms provided to men seeking conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War.[65] The Center first asked respondents: “Do you believe in God or not?” After answering either “Yes” or “No,” however, the survey questions split in two.[66] If a respondent answered “yes,” the respondent would then be asked to choose whether they believed in “God as described in the Bible” or believed instead in “some higher power/spiritual force.”[67] Those respondents who answered “no” to the initial question were then asked if they did not believe in God, did they or did they not still believe in “some higher power/spiritual force.”[68]

The results of this questionnaire revealed that the initial question was in many ways the wrong question to ask; regardless of how respondents answered, responses to the Center’s subsequent probes for specificity revealed that one-third of respondents aligned with a response closest to personalized spirituality: a belief in a non-specific “higher power/spiritual force.”[69] Twenty-three percent called this Supreme Being by the specific and Christianized term “God” while nine percent did not.[70]

In a country whose Constitution grants specific rights to “religion” but not specifically to “spirituality,” the language of “sincerity” is a useful expansion on the Free Exercise clause. While sincerity is admittedly difficult to adjudicate,[71] the broad-scope construction Welsh provides is a further elaboration on the treatment of religious rights.

This development might be more of a continuity than a turning point; scholar Andrew Koppelman, who interviewed Elliott Welsh in order to write his narrative paper about Welsh v. United States, argues that the Court has a long tradition of reactivity to the changing American religious landscape.[72] His argument follows the evolution of religious conscientious objector claims from the earliest pacifist sects such as the Quakers or the Mennonites to Welsh’s personalized spirituality, concluding that the Court’s decision in Welsh was preceded by similar efforts to increase the inclusivity of laws surrounding exemptions to military service.[73]

But if Welsh truly represents the future of religious rights adjudication, it must apply well beyond draft exemptions and conscientious objector status. Already, legal scholars have foreshadowed what Welsh and the “sincerity” test might mean in the years to come. In a very vividly written and largely hypothetical paper, Ignatius “Mickey” Michael Ingles discusses artificial intelligence, fictional “religious robots,” and their legal implications.[74] His analysis includes the possibility of robotic conscientious objectors petitioning against forced service in the military.[75] Using Seeger and Welsh to demonstrate the expansion of the legal definition of religion, Ingles argues that an artificial intelligence could one day develop with moral protests that, under the sincerity test, legally qualify for First Amendment protection:

Imagine this. It is 2045. The United States is in its final military campaign against a dangerous terrorist group hiding in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Because of the perils associated with smoking out terrorists in unfamiliar territory, the United States uses a military unit composed entirely of robots. . . . However, on the eve of the campaign, one robot reports to its human commanding officer that it will no longer participate in any military action. The reason: its newfound belief in a higher power compelled it to lead a pacifist life, and further participation in a war is against its core beliefs.[76]

Setting aside, of course, the enormous philosophical and hypothetical issue of robot personhood, Ingles’ analysis follows naturally from the decisions in these two cases. His speculative society of conscientiously-objecting robots protected by the precedents of Seeger and Welsh is of a more distant “future” of religious rights adjudication than the future envisioned by legal scholar Lalita Moskowitz. Moskowitz analyzes whether feminist beliefs, themselves rooted in “core principles and ideas about morality,” could constitute religious beliefs under the Seeger and Welsh decisions.[77] She ultimately concludes that a feminist belief in the “sanctity of women’s bodies and the moral imperative of bodily autonomy” is analogous to Seeger and Welsh’s beliefs about human life and morality which compelled them to seek conscientious objector status, and which earned religious rights protection from the Supreme Court.[78] Such a construction by the courts could protect feminist belief under the same scope as religious beliefs. With an argument similar to Davis’ separation of religious definitions, Moskowitz writes:

[R]egardless of whether Feminism would be considered a religion under a common understanding or colloquial definition of the concept, it fits within the more encompassing constitutional definition established by our courts. Feminism constitutes a religion under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment using . . . the Supreme Court’s Seeger/Welsh test.[79]

The hypotheticals of Ingles and Moskowitz have their limitations, but I mention them here to demonstrate how scholarly conversations about the future of religious rights adjudications consistently extrapolate upon the Supreme Court’s decision in Welsh. If this decision and the test of sincerity are not the future, then what is the alternative? If the courts return to a standard such asthe one Solicitor General Griswold argued before the Supreme Court in 1970 (a standard whichonly protects “recognized religious sects”) then statistically the First Amendment will protectfewer Americans each year, as adherence to organized religion declines and personalizedspirituality increases.[80] The scholarly conversation of the future must define the elements of a workable and consistent sincerity test and limit which circumstances warrant religious claims, but that future is

[1] When Americans Say They Believe in God, What Do They Mean?, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Apr. 15, 2022), https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/ [hereinafter When Americans Say].

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

[4] Id.

[5] Id. (emphasis added).

[6] 380 U.S. 163 (1965).

[7] 398 U.S. 333 (1970).

[8] Id. at 335 (citing Seeger, 380 U.S. at 163).

[9] See Agnes Ebotabe Arrey et al., Spirituality/Religiosity: A Cultural and Psychological Resource Among Sub-Saharan African Migrant Women with HIV/AIDS in Belgium, PLoS one, July 22, 2016, at 3 (defining spirituality as a “personal belief in God or a Higher Power, that may include individual prayer, meditation[,] and meaning in self”).

[10] Transcript of Oral Argument at 15-19, Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333 (1970) (No. 76).

[11] Id. at 17-19, 21.

[12] See Frank Newport & Joseph Carroll, Iraq Versus Vietnam: A Comparison of Public Opinion, Gallup (Aug. 24, 2005), https://news.gallup.com/poll/18097/raq-versus-vietnam-comparison-public-opinion.aspx; Daniel S. Levy, Behind The Anti-War Protests That Swept America in 1968, Time (Jan. 19, 2018), https://time.com/5106608/protest-1968/.

[13] United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 165 (1965).

[14] Welsh, 398 U.S. at 335.

[15] Id. at 335, 367. Justice Blackmun took no part in the decision. Id. at 344.

[16] Id.

[17] See generally Transcript of Oral Argument, Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333 (1970) (No. 76); When Americans Say, supra note 1.

[18] 50 U.S.C. App. § 456(j) (current version at 50 U.S.C. § 2535(b)).

[19] Michael Ray, Selective Service Acts, Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/event/Selective-Service-Acts (last updated Oct. 12, 2023).

[20] Id.

[21] 50 U.S.C. App. § 456(j).

[22] Id. §§ 451-473.

[23] See SSS Form 150, 37 Fed. Reg. `486, 487 (January 12, 1972).

[24] Id.

[25] Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 336-37 (1970).

[26] Id. at 337.

[27] United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 187 (1965).

[28] United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 187 (1965).

[29] Welsh, 398 U.S. at 337 n.3.

[30] Id.

[31] See id. at 336-37.

[32] See 50 U.S.C. App. §456(j) (1970), as amended, 50 U.S.C.A. App. § 456(j) (Supp. 1972).

[33] See Curtis W. Tarr, Selective Service and Conscientious Objectors, 57 A.B.A. 976, 976-80 (1971). Curtis Tarr, the Director of Selective Service in 1970, published an article in the American Bar Association Journal concerning Memorandum No. 107, which “[s]ets forth for members of local boards the criteria for classification of conscientious objectors.” Id. at 976. Tarr was supportive of the Welsh decision but faced opposition from those (including some still serving in Congress who oversaw the original 1948 Act) who did not believe the Welsh decision “appli[ed] to the Selective Service as amended in 1967.” Id.

[34] The concept of the “Supreme Being” is only used twice during oral argument, and only to recognize that it was removed from the language of the Act. Transcript of Oral Argument at 10-11, Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333 (1970) (No. 76). It is worth noting that despite the removal of the reference to “Supreme Being” in the Act itself, multiple references are made both in the oral arguments on behalf of the petition as well as in the plurality opinion to Welsh’s efforts to correct his form and strike his “No” answer. Council for Welsh, J. B. Tietz, when before the Court, stated “[Welsh] is not an athiest [sic], so that isn’t involved”. Id. at 4; Welsh, 398 U.S. at 337 n. 3.

[35] 50 U.S.C. App. §456(j).

[36] Welsh, 398 U.S. at 357 (Harlan, J., concurring).

[37] Id. at 341.

[38] Id. at 342.

[39] Id. at 344 (Harlan, J., concurring).

[40] Id. at 345 (Harlan, J., concurring).

[41] Id. at 368 (White, J., dissenting).

[42] Id. (White, J., dissenting).

[43] Id. (White, J. dissenting) (noting that “personal moral codes” are not protected by the Selective Service Act); see Religion, Gallup, https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx, (last visited Oct. 20, 2023).

[44] Theodore F. Denno, Welsh Reaffirms Seeger: From a Remarkable Feat of Judicial Surgery to a Lobotomy, 46 Ind. L.J. 37, 39-40 (1970) (describing the evolving relationship between legislatures and the courts).

[45] Brief for Petitioner at 15, Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333 (1970) (No. 76).

[46] Id.

[47] Welsh, 398 U.S. at 335.

[48] See The Selective Service Act of 1948, 50 U.S.C. App. §§ 451-473.

[49] Welsh, 398 U.S. at 342.

[50] Id. at 340.

[51] See App. at 30, Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333 (1970) (No. 76).

[52] David Masci & Michael Lipka, Americans May Be Getting Less Religious, but Feelings of Spirituality Are on the Rise, Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Jan. 21, 2021), https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/21/americans spirituality/.

[53] Kent Greenawalt, Refusals of Conscience: What Are They and When Should They Be Accommodates?, 9 Ave Maria L. Rev. 47, 50 (2010).

[54] Id. at 51.

[55] Id.

[56] Derek H. Davis, Is Atheism a Religion? Recent Judicial Perspective on the Constitutional Meaning of Religion, 47 J. Church & State 707, 720 (2005).

[57] Id. at 707.

[58] Id. at 720.

[59] Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 358-59,  (1970).

[60] See Kaufman v. McCaughtry, 419 F.3d 678, 682 (7th Cir. 2005).

[61] Davis, supra note 56, at 716.

[62] Id.

[63] Id. at 713.

[64] Id.

[65] When Americans Say, supra note 1.

[66] Id.

[67] Id.

[68] Id.

[69] Id.

[70] Id.

[71] One specific difficulty with the “sincerity” test is its tendency to place Justices in the position to evaluate a claimant’s beliefs in a way that runs afoul of the Court’s tradition not to adjudicate neither the truthfulness of a belief nor relevance of a belief to the doctrine of a recognized religious sect. I argue that to adjudicate sincerity, however, does not require any particular commentary from Justices on either of these factors; neither factor was evaluated in Welsh’s case. Affirming or denying the sincerity of a claimant makes no judgment on the truthfulness or relevance of that claimant’s beliefs among others; such an affirmation or denial only makes a judgment about the strength with which one believes them.

[72] See Andrew M. Koppelman, The Story of Welsh v. United States: Elliott Welsh's Two Religious Tests, in First Amend. Stories 293, 294 (Richard Garnett & Andrew Koppelman, eds. 2011).

[73] Id.

[74] Ignatius Michael Ingles, Regulating Religious Robots: Free Exercise and RFRA in the Time of Superintelligent Artificial Intelligence, 105 Geo. L.J. 507, 508-09 (2017).

[75] Id.

[76] Id.

[77] Lalita Moskowitz, God is a Woman: Feminism as a Religion Protected Under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, 27 Am. U. J. Gender Soc. Pol’y & L. 223, 237 (2019).

[78] Id. at 240.

[79] Id. at 238.

[80] When Americans Say, supra note 1.