Alito and the Free Exercise Clause.

Emily Bazelon has a piece in Slate about what Samuel Alito has written about religious freedom. She starts off by linking to my NYT op-ed noting that his take on the Free Exercise Clause sets him apart from Justice Scalia, who has embraced a narrow interpretation. Well, she half-links to it, in that it's behind a pay-wall now, but I preserved a permanent link, and you can read it free here.

Bazelon writes:

Alito's religious-liberty opinions are mechanistic applications of precedent. They reveal little about the stance he'd take toward religious liberty as a justice of the Supreme Court.

This is incorrect. Judge Alito pushed the envelope in two cases. In two cases -- which Bazelon details -- he took the doctrine, which says that neutral, generally applicable laws do not violate Free Exercise and was unusually quick to see nonneutrality, which causes the standard to become strict scrutiny. This, in fact, is very revealing. It shows a judge chafing against the doctrine he's forced to follow!