From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

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.

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 US Supreme Court unanimously ruled that such language in state constitutions was in violation of Article VI of the US Constitution in Torcaso v. Watkins. 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]