The United States Constitution and Jehovah’s Witnesses
The year 1987 marks the 200th anniversary of the United States Constitution. With attention being devoted to this bicentennial, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States and around the world are reminded of their struggle in that country to defend and legally establish their right to spread their religious views.
WHAT does the Constitution mean to you? To illustrate, suppose that in your community you wanted to distribute on the streets and from house to house printed information that you felt was of concern to the people. But what if you learned that to distribute such material was a violation of laws designed to ensure public peace and good order? Or what if you had to get a permit to do so, and officials would not issue one? Or you had to buy a license and doing so would be an economic burden for you?
This was the position in which Jehovah’s Witnesses found themselves back in the 1930’s and 1940’s. They wanted to distribute printed matter containing their religious views. However, in many communities local laws and ordinances were used to hinder them. Thus, appeals were made on the basis of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech and of the press. But in order to secure these constitutional rights, they had to take such matters to the courts. Let’s take a look at how the Constitution guarantees individual rights.
Securing Individual Rights
Like any blueprint, a constitution sets forth a design for the accomplishment of an objective—in this case the government of a people. As stated in the United States Declaration of Independence, governments are instituted among men to secure for the governed certain “unalienable Rights.”
The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution picks up this theme and states that the Constitution was ordained and established to secure “the Blessings of Liberty” for the people. The final draft of the Constitution was completed at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 17, 1787. This Constitution is unusual because it is the oldest written constitution still in effect.
The U.S. Constitution is noted for its distrust of overly powerful government and its elevation of individual liberties above the reach of governmental interference. Among the best-known features of the Constitution are its guarantees of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. These freedoms were not stated in the Constitution as first drafted and ratified. They were added in 1791 as the first of ten initial amendments, commonly known as the Bill of Rights.
The freedoms expressly stated in the Bill of Rights belong to individuals and are neither dependent upon governmental permission nor subject to government curtailment. Why, then, should people have to fight for their rights through the courts? Because at times legislative bodies, acting in what they considered to be the interests of the majority, have passed laws that restricted those rights.
As one federal court in the United States observed: “The tyranny of majorities over the rights of individuals or helpless minorities has always been recognized as one of the great dangers of popular government.” It was just such tyranny that confronted Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States during the 1930’s and 1940’s.
Preachers or Peddlers?
As the second world war approached, the public preaching work of Jehovah’s Witnesses was the focus of much opposition. Municipal ordinances requiring solicitors and peddlers to obtain permits were wrongfully applied to the Witnesses’ preaching work. Realizing that this application of such laws violated their constitutional rights, the Witnesses challenged these ordinances by going about their preaching work without first obtaining permits. (Mark 13:10; Acts 4:19, 20) As a result, many Witnesses were arrested.
If the lower courts ruled against them, the Witnesses paid no fines but went to jail instead. They kept appealing the cases as high up in the court system as possible so as to build up a bulwark of favorable decisions that would stem this unconstitutional interference with their work. As time went on, the U.S. Supreme Court repeatedly struck down these ordinances as being either unconstitutional in themselves or as applied, and the convictions of Jehovah’s Witnesses were reversed.
In addition to permit ordinances, license-tax laws were used to restrict the preaching work of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Viewing such a tax as a temporal restriction on the divinely commissioned preaching activity, Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to pay it. Again, many Witnesses were arrested, and again, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the freedoms of speech and worship.
The Court stated that the privilege of freely disseminating religious teachings by the printed page “exists apart from state authority. It is guaranteed the people by the federal constitution.” Simply put, the State could not take away what the Constitution had already given.
The Flag Salute
Jehovah’s Witnesses have always been law-abiding citizens who intend no disrespect by their refusal to salute the flag of any country. The Witnesses believe that their paramount duty and allegiance belong to their God and Maker, Jehovah. (Luke 4:8) To pledge total allegiance to any earthly authority would be to put worldly interests before spiritual interests. (Acts 5:29) Despite this sincere motive, the Witnesses’ refusal to salute the flag has often been misunderstood and used as a basis for persecution.
As the second world war was approaching, local school boards and state legislatures in the United States promulgated mandatory flag-salute exercises to promote national unity and security. Despite the tide of popular opinion in support of these flag-salute requirements, Jehovah’s Witnesses steadfastly refused to compromise their Bible-based principles.
In reviewing this state of affairs, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged that while school boards unquestionably had important and highly discretionary functions, those functions had to be performed within the bounds of the Constitution. A school board was not free to interfere with the fundamental constitutional rights guaranteed to the individual. The Supreme Court thus held that a school board’s notions about methods of instilling appreciation for the flag and national heritage did not override a student’s constitutional right of freedom of conscience in matters of religion.
The Supreme Court was not unaware of the gravity of its decision in view of the national war effort then in progress. But the Court did not shirk its duty and explained that under the U.S. Constitution, “freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.”
The Supreme Court concluded its flag-salute opinion with the following statement: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
The Witnesses’ Contribution
In all, Jehovah’s Witnesses have been successful in 23 appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. They have made a tremendous contribution to the constitutional jurisprudence of the United States, as has been noted by many legal scholars. And it would have been impossible if Jehovah’s Witnesses had not been willing to suffer indignities, beatings, and jailings in their efforts to be obedient to their God.
That the constitutional rights of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press have been advanced and more clearly defined because of the Witnesses’ endurance is really only a by-product of the Witnesses’ higher objective of serving Jehovah in harmony with his Holy Word.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are grateful for the privilege of serving the Sovereign of the Universe, Jehovah God, and they have used many means, including the protections afforded by the 200-year-old U.S. Constitution, to accomplish that end.
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Constitution Backs Witnesses Again
On June 10, 1987, the courts once again ruled in favor of religious freedom for Jehovah’s Witnesses on constitutional grounds. As reported in The New York Times, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that freedom to act in harmony with their religious beliefs “must be tolerated by society, under the Constitution, ‘as a price well worth paying to safeguard the right of religious difference that all citizens enjoy.’” The case involved the Witnesses’ right to obey the Bible’s command ‘never to receive into your homes or say a greeting’ to those who do “not remain in the teaching of the Christ.”—2 John 9-11.
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Independence Hall, Philadelphia, where the Constitution was formulated
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Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau
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The original Constitution is kept in the National Archives
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U.S. National Archives
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Architect of the Capitol, Washington, D.C.