Happy to announce the release of a new video in our YouTube series, “Landmark Cases in Religious Freedom.” The new video examines the landmark 1878 case, Reynolds v. United States, the Supreme Court’s first decision on the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause.

Through the story of George Reynolds, a devout Mormon charged with bigamy, the Court established that although the Free Exercise Clause protects religious belief absolutely, it allows the state to regulate religious conduct–at least if the state has a good reason for doing so. Learn how Chief Justice Waite’s opinion introduced Jefferson’s “wall of separation” metaphor to the Court’s caselaw and why the Court rejected religious belief as a defense to criminal charges, setting a precedent that still influences religious freedom cases today: