No religious test clause
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The "no religious test" clause of the United States Constitution is found in Article VI, section 3, and states that:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

This has been interpreted to mean that no federal employee, whether elected or appointed, "career" or "political," can be required to adhere to or accept any religion or belief. This clause immediately follows one requiring all federal and state officers to take an oath of support to the Constitution. This implies that the requirement of an oath, even presumably one taken "So help me God" (not a part of the presidential oath, the only one spelled out in the Constitution, but traditionally almost always added to it), does not imply any requirement by those so sworn to accept a particular religion or a particular doctrine.

The clause is cited by advocates of separation of church and state as an example of "original intent" of the Framers of the Constitution of avoiding any entanglement between church and state, or involving the government in any way as a determiner of religious beliefs or practices. This is important as this clause represents the words of the original Framers, even prior to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Background

See also: Test Act

A variety of Test Acts were instituted in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. Their main purpose was to exclude anyone not a member of the Church of England from holding government office, notably Catholics and other "nonconforming" Protestants. Government officials were required to swear oaths, such as the Oath of Supremacy, that the monarch of England was the head of the Church and that they possessed no other foreign loyalties, such as to the Pope. Later acts required officials to disavow transubstantiation and the veneration of saints.

Many colonists of the Thirteen Colonies had left England in part to gain a measure of religious freedom. With the royal government's religious favoritism fresh in their memory, the Founders sought to prevent the return of the Test Acts by adding this clause to the Constitution.

Forced oaths

The Supreme Court has interpreted this provision broadly, saying that any required oath to serve anything other than the Constitution is invalid. In the case of Ex parte Garland, the Court overturned a loyalty oath that the government had tried to apply to pardoned Confederate officials. As the officials had already received full presidential pardons (negating an argument based on their potential status as criminals), the Court ruled that forcing officials and judges to swear loyalty oaths was unconstitutional.

State law

Earlier in U.S. history, the doctrine of states' rights allowed individual states to choose not to have this provision in their state constitutions or even to have an opposite provision; such provisions have by extension in recent decades been deemed to be unconstitutional by the extension of the First Amendment provisions to the states (via the incorporation of the 14th Amendment).

Six states, however, have language included in their Bill of Rights, Declaration of Rights, or in the body of their constitutions that require state office-holders to have particular religious beliefs. These states are Texas, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.¹ The required beliefs include belief in a Supreme Being, and belief in a future state of rewards and punishments. Some of these same states specify that the oath of office include the words "so help me God." In some cases these beliefs (or oaths) were historically required also of jurors, witnesses in court, notaries public, and state employees. While these laws are often regarded as relics, if it became known that a non-believer was elected to office, there is the possibility of a court challenge over eligibility. In 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that such language in state constitutions was in violation of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution in Torcaso v. Watkins cite disagrees with this assertion. In 1997 the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution requiring an oath to God for employment in the public sector was unconstitutional.²

References

1. ^ "Religious discrimination in state constitutions". Religioustolerance.org. Retrieved on 2008-09-06.
2. ^ "Coverage of the Inevitable Apocalypso". Positiveatheism.org. Retrieved on 2008-09-06.