Religion & American Law

                According to the practices of the Catholic Church, the death sentence is not to be used when “non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect people’s safety from the aggressor.” Having these individuals sit as jurors for Tsarnaev trial would potentially eliminate the death penalty from consideration. However, this fact isn’t a guarantee. Many Catholics would still support the death penalty. This uncertainty comes from a wide range of reasons from simply being loose supporters of the Catholic teachings to the local attitude towards the Boston Bombing incident. The article, however, makes the claim that no matter these other facts, due to the extraordinary decision that would need to be reached even the less-observant Catholics would turn towards the Church for guidance. It is due to this that many feel that Catholics should not sit on the jury in order to leave the death penalty open as an option

                The issue that is in contention from this article is whether religious ideals can be eliminated from a court room or should they be present since one is to be judged by a jury of their peers. In my opinion, Catholics should not be disqualified due to their religious teachings. In order for someone to be tried fairly in a court of law, they should have a highly represented body of their peers decided the facts of the case. To achieve this, a varied of religious preferences should be present in the court room. Due to the large percentage of Catholics, this must be especially true in this case. While the 1^st Amendment grants religious freedom, I do not think that it has the ability to deny religion from public services. It can lead to a slippery slope for a varied of other public services positions. One such example could be denying certain religions from the line of duty because they don’t believe in killing another person. If our society denies the responsibly of one public service, such as jury duty, what other duties could be denied to certain religions down the road. Just because an individual identifies as a religion doesn’t mean they uphold all the views of that particular religion. In this case I believe Catholics should be allowed to sit on the jury, even if there presupposed beliefs do not correspond to what the court wants.

                The question that needs to be answered is whether a secular body, such as the government, can deny an individual from a public responsibly due to their religious preferences?