WELSH v. UNITED STATES

Did the Arkansas Department of Correction's grooming policy substantially burden the prisoner's free exercise of religion?

Whether a city ordinance which requires canvassers to obtain a permit and reveal identifying information before going door-to-door to spread their political or religious messages violates the First Amendment.

Whether Congress could constitutionally enact the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which establishes a higher standard than the one pronounced by the United States Supreme Court for determining whether a law impermissibly infringes on a person's right to exercise his or her religion.

Whether a local school district that allows its facilities to be used for social and civic purposes may prevent a religious organization from using the facilities to show a movie that presents family issues from a religious perspective.

Whether the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment prohibit a State from imposing a generally applicable sales and use tax on the distribution of religious materials by a religious organizations.

Whether Illinois denial of unemployment compensation for a man who refused a temporary retail position because the job would have required him to work on Sunday, confliction with his personal religious beliefs, was in violation of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Whether the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment permits the State of Oregon to include religiously inspired peyote use within the reach of its general criminal prohibition on use of that drug, and thus permits the State to deny unemployment benefits to the persons dismissed from their jobs because of religiously inspired use.

Whether the construction of a paved road through federal land and allowance of timber harvesting by the United States Forest Service violates the Free Exercise Clause when part of such land has historically been used by certain American Indians for religious rituals that depend upon privacy, silence, and an undisturbed natural setting.

Whether prison regulations that required prisoners to work outside on Friday afternoons, thereby making it impossible for them to attend Muslim congregational services held at that time, violated their rights under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Whether refusal to award unemployment compensation to person terminated for reasons due to conflicts between religion and employment violates the Free Exercise Clause.

Whether the requirement that citizens must obtain a Social Security number for their daughter in order to qualify for benefits under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children and the Food Stamp program, when citizen contends that obtaining a Social Security number violates their religious beliefs, violates the Free Exercise Clause.

Whether a passive enforcement policy under which the Government prosecutes only those who report themselves as having violated the law, or who are reported by others, violates the First Amendment.

Whether the imposition of social security is unconstitutional for those who oppose based on religious grounds.

Whether a state, consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, may confine religious organizations wishing to sell and distribute religious literature at a state fair to an assigned location within the fairgrounds.

Whether denial of unemployment compensation because employee voluntary terminated employment based on religious beliefs and not upon a good cause [arising] in connection with [his] work, as required by Indiana statute, violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Whether a Tennessee constitutional provision barring [m]inister[s] of the Gospel, or priest[s] of any denomination whatever from serving as a delegate violates the Free Exercise Clause.

Whether the State of New Hampshire may constitutionally enforce criminal sanctions against persons who cover the motto "Live Free or Die" on passenger vehicle license plates because that motto is repugnant to their moral and religious beliefs.

Whether Wisconsins compulsory school-attendance law (which requires a childs school attendance until age 16) violates the Free Exercise rights of Amish who declined for religious reasons to send their children to public or private school after they had graduated from the eighth grade.

Whether a prisons denial to an alleged Buddhist prisoner of use of the prison chapel and permission to write to his religious advisor and his placement in solitary confinement for sharing his religious material with other prisoners violated his right to free exercise.

The validity of Petitioners Armed Forces induction notice, which was grounded upon an erroneous denial of the petitioners claim to classified as a conscientious objector.

Whether the conscientious objector exemption for persons subject to service in the armed forces of the United States violates the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses of the First Amendment since the exemption requires the objector to oppose all wars.

Whether the section of the Universal Military Training and Service Act, which allows a conscientious objector status only for those who believe in a Supreme Being, violates the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment by distinguishing between religious and nonreligious objectors and discriminating between different forms of religious expression.

Whether a law denying unemployment benefits to someone who cannot find work because their religious beliefs prohibit working on Saturdays is constitutional.

Whether a Philadelphia statute preventing sale of retail on Sundays constitutes a law respecting an establishment of religion and interferes with free exercise by imposing serious economic disadvantages to member of the Orthodox Jewish Faith, who must close their businesses on Saturday in order to observe their Sabbath.

Whether a New Hampshire ordinance prohibiting holding of a religious meeting in a public park without a license violates the Free Exercise Clause.

Whether a municipal ordinance which is applied to penalize a minister of Jehovah's Witnesses for preaching at a peaceful religious meeting in a public park, although other religious groups could conduct religious services there, violates the First Amendment..

Whether a city ordinance which prescribes no appropriate standard for administrative action and gives an administrative official discretionary power to control in advance the right of citizens to speak on religious matters on the city streets is invalid under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Whether a state, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, can impose criminal punishment on a person who undertakes to distribute religious literature on the premises of a company-owned town contrary to the wishes of the town's management.

Whether a Texas Penal Code statute which makes it an offense for any peddler or hawker of goods or merchandise to willfully refuse to leave premises after having been notified to do so by owner applies to a person distributing religious material

Whether charging a jury with determining the truth or falsity of Defendants religious beliefs violates the Free Exercise Clause.

Whether an ordinance requiring agent selling books to pay license fee of $1 per day or $15 per year is an improper restriction on "freedom of religion" as applied to resident preacher who earned his living by sale of religious books.

Whether Massachusetts child labor laws, stating no boy under the age of twelve and no girl under eighteen shall sell, expose or offer for sale any newspaper, magazines, periodicals, contravene the Fourteenth Amendment by denying or abridging appellants freedom of religion.

Whether a Pennsylvania ordinance imposing a tax on sale of religious materials violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

Whether a Dallas city ordinance, which prohibits distribution of handbills on the streets, violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment when the material being distributed is religious in its nature.

Whether a city ordinance, which makes it unlawful for any person to solicit orders or to sell books, wares or merchandise with the residence portion of Paris, TX without first filing an application an obtaining a permit, violates the Fourteenth Amendment when the person wants to sell religious material.

Whether the requirement in the participation of in the pledge of allegiance, which includes the word God, exacted from a child who refuses upon since religious grounds, infringes upon due process of law the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Did the solicitation statute or the "breach of the peace" ordinance violate the Cantwells' First & Fourteenth Amendment free speech and/or free exercise rights?

Whether a conviction for bigamy violated the First Amendment rights of a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who asserted that faithful practice of his religion required him to engage in polygamy.