Bill Text: NY K00293 | 2019-2020 | General Assembly | Introduced
Bill Title: Recognizing Secular Humanism as a religion for purposes of the First Amendment Establishment Clause
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 7-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2019-04-12 - referred to judiciary [K00293 Detail]
Download: New_York-2019-K00293-Introduced.html
Assembly Resolution No. 293
BY: M. of A. DiPietro
RECOGNIZING Secular Humanism as a religion for
purposes of the First Amendment Establishment Clause
WHEREAS, It is the sense of this Legislative Body to recognize
Secular Humanism, also referred to as postmodern western individualistic
moral relativism or expressive individualism, as a religion for purposes
of the First Amendment Establishment Clause; and
WHEREAS, The First Amendment Establishment Clause reads "Congress
shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"; and
WHEREAS, The First Amendment Establishment Clause also applies to
both the executive branch and the judicial branch; and
WHEREAS, The Establishment Clause applies to the State of New York
through the Fourteenth Amendment; and
WHEREAS, The State of New York is prohibited from enforcing policies
that violate the Establishment Clause pursuant to Article VI of the
United States Constitution; and
WHEREAS, All religion amounts to is a set of unproven answers to the
greater questions like "why are we here" and "what should we be doing as
humans"; and
WHEREAS, A Secular Humanism consists of a series of unproven
faith-based assumptions and naked assertions that are implicitly
religious, and the State of New York is prohibited from respecting and
endorsing such truth claims through state action; and
WHEREAS, The First Amendment Establishment Clause was not just
designed to prohibit the State of New York from respecting, endorsing,
favoring, or recognizing the unproven truth claims and doctrines of
institutionalized religions but also the Establishment Clause prohibits
the State of New York from respecting, endorsing, favoring, or
recognizing the unproven truth claims of non-institutionalized
religions, like Secular Humanism; and
WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court recognized that Secular
Humanism is a religion for purposes of the First Amendment Establishment
Clause in Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), stating that
religions "exist that do not teach what would generally be considered a
belief in the existence of God, to include Atheism, Buddhism, Taoism,
Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others; see Washington Ethical
Society v. District of Columbia, 101 U.S. App. D.C. 371, 249 F.2d 127;
Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda, 153 Cal. App. 2d 673, 315
P. 2d 394; II Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences 293; 4 Encyclopaedia
Britannica (1957 ed.) 325-327; 21 id., at 797; Archer, Faiths Men Live
By (2d ed. revised by Purinton), 120-138, 254-313; 1961 World Almanac
695, 712; Year Book of American Churches for 1961, at 29, 47"; and
WHEREAS, Most of the Federal Courts of appeals have acknowledged
that Secular Humanism is a religion in cases such as Malnak v. Yogi, 592
F.2d 197, 200-15 (3d Cir.1979), Theriault v. Silber, 547 F.2d 1279, 1281
(5th Cir.1977), Thomas v. Review Bd., 450 U.S. 707, 714, 101 S.Ct. 1425,
67 L.Ed.2d 624 (1981), Lindell v. McCallum, 352 F.3d 1107, 1110 (7th
Cir.2003), Real Alternatives, Inc. v. Sec'y Dep't of Health & Human
Servs., 150 F.Supp. 3d 419, 2017 WL3324690 (3d Cir. Aug. 4, 2017), and
Wells v. City and County of Denver, 257 F.3d 1132, 1148 (10th Cir.
2001); and
WHEREAS, The Supreme Court in cases such as County of Allegheny v.
ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989) and Lee v. Weissman, 505 U.S. 577 (1992)
resolved that just as government officials may not favor or endorse one
religion over others, so too officials may not favor or endorse the
religion generally over non-religion; and
WHEREAS, Self-asserted sex-based identity narratives that are
questionably real, moral, and decent are implicitly religious in nature
and flow out of the religion of Secular Humanism; and
WHEREAS, The ideas that "sexual orientation is immutable" or that
"life does not begin at conception" are an unproven truth claims and
naked assertions that are doctrines that are inseparably linked to the
religion of Secular Humanism; and
WHEREAS, Emotional appeals nor sincerity of belief can be used to
usurp the Establishment Clause; and
WHEREAS, At the heart of Secular Humanism is the unproven premise
that there is no such thing as absolute truth and that truth is merely a
man-made convention; and
WHEREAS, The fundamental principle of Secular Humanism is what is
right for me is right for me and what is right for you is right for you;
and
WHEREAS, The idea that all moral doctrine are equal and that no one
set of moral doctrine should be used as the superior basis for law over
another is itself a moral doctrine that suggest that it should be used
as the superior basis for law over all others; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause in its deliberations to
recognize Secular Humanism as a religion for purposes of the First
Amendment Establishment Clause prohibiting the State of New York from
respecting, recognizing, endorsing, favoring, or enforcing policies that
have the effect of entangling the government with the religion of
Secular Humanism, placing religion over non-religion, or from endorsing
the religion of Secular Humanism though state action; and be it further
RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause further to recognize that
in view of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the United
States and New York Constitution, any individual living in this state
may self-identify as a Secular Humanist and practice Secular Humanism
own their own as long as the practices do not violate existing federal
and state law; and be it further
RESOLVED, That this Legislative Body pause further to recognize that
the unproven truth claims of Secular Humanism do not fulfill any
compelling state interest and tend to undermine compelling state
interest to uphold community standards of decency.
