Conscientious Objection

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Conscientious Objection

All religions must decide how "worldly" they will be, including the stance they will take toward the state. Within this larger issue is the issue of the religion's participation in war when the state undertakes military action. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has long entertained the notion of "just" versus "unjust" war, the implication being that faithful Catholics should not fight in "unjust" wars. In Protestantism, objection to war became a central tenet of that branch most suspicious of worldly, secular authority, which gave rise to such denominations as the Amish, the Mennonites, the Brethren, and the Quakers.

In America, the Continental Congress in 1775, noting the presence in the colonies of conscientious objectors to war, passed a resolution that read: "As there are some people who, from religious principles, cannot bear arms in any case, this Congress intends no violence to their consciences, but earnestly recommends it to them, to contribute liberally in this time of universal calamity, to the relief of their distressed brethren in the several colonies. . . . ( Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774 –1789, vol. 2, p. 169).

The U.S. Constitution makes no reference to conscientious objection, its authors having decided to leave the matter to the individual states. Because there was no military draft in either the War of 1812 or the Mexican War, the fate of conscientious objectors depended on local opinion and whatever laws had been passed by state legislatures. In the Civil War, however, compulsory military service existed in both North and South, which made conscientious objections an unavoidable legal issue. Both sides adopted a policy recognizing that any person belonging to a recognized "peace" church had the choice of paying another person to substitute for him or else accept noncombatant duties.

World War I saw a similar resolution. Ordained ministers were exempt from the draft, and members of recognized "peace" churches were exempt from "combatant duty." This policy was challenged on the ground that it unconstitutionally "established" religion by failing to exempt persons of like belief who were not members of a recognized pacifist church. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that argument, however.

Several legal battles took place after World War I, most involving pacifists applying for citizenship in the United States. However, with the knowledge that another world war was looming, Congress expanded its definition of eligibility for exemption from the draft. In 1940 the legislation that brought the Selective Service into existence exempted from combatant service any person "who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form." During World War II, draft boards had difficulty interpreting those words when claims were made in the name not of "religious training" but of ethical, philosophical, or political belief.

In 1948, therefore, Congress amended the law by declaring that "religious training and belief" means "an individual's belief in a relation to a Supreme Being involving duties superior to those arising from any human relation, but [excluding] essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views or a merely personal moral code."

In 1965, in a case known as United States v. Seeger (380 U.S. 163), but in reality a combination of three similar cases, this 1948 language was challenged. All three defendants claimed to have no traditional concept of God or necessarily of a Supreme Being. Seeger, for example, stated his "belief in and devotion to goodness and virtue for their own sake, and a religious faith in a purely ethical creed." In a unanimous decision, the Court responded affirmatively, saying that the question is "whether a given belief that is sincere and meaningful occupies a place in the life of its possessor parallel to that filled by the orthodox belief in God with one who clearly qualifies for the exemption." In this remarkable decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that conscientious objector eligibility rests on the validity of conscience, not on the particular language used to express it.

Five years later, in Welsh v. United States (398 U.S. 333), a divided (5–4) Court reaffirmed this view that the key element was conscientious conviction, not the method by which such conviction comes about or is expressed. Welsh, more than Seeger, upheld conscientious objection based on beliefs that were wholly and unambiguously nonreligious.

One further case deserves mention. In 1971 the Court decided Gillette v. United States (401 U.S. 437), in which the plaintiff, a devout Roman Catholic, invoked his church's "just war" doctrine—that is, he was prepared to be drafted into some wars but not into the war against Vietnam because it was not a just war. By a vote of eight to one the Court said that such "selective" conscientious objection was not constitutionally protected.

Without a Selective Service Act, when the U.S. government has only a voluntary military, conscientious objection tends to fade away as an issue. Should the draft be reinstated, however, the nation would once again face the issue. If so, perhaps it might take yet another step away from its earliest positions on conscientious objection, when only members of pacifist churches qualified.