Robert Miller on Hadley Arkes, RFRA, courts, and the law

Prof. Robert Miller (Iowa) has a nice essay up at Public Discourse in which he responds to the argument that Prof. Hadley Arkes (and some others) has made, that is, "that the plaintiffs in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, most of their supporters in the public square, and Justice Alito in his majority opinion in the case have adopted a mistaken and dangerous understanding of religious freedom."  (I addressed this argument in this post, and Prof. Arkes responded here.) 

Here is a taste (but I recommend reading the whole thing):

. . .  In the law of religious freedom, the morality of the religious practices of the man who claims a right to religious freedom is relevant, but so too are many other considerations. Once again, it matters that the law is a system administered by imperfect human beings. In particular, long and sad experience has shown that legislatures and courts are not good at sorting out true religious beliefs from false ones, and majorities, whether religious or non-religious, tend to persecute religious minorities, which produces social strife and sometimes bloodshed. Even when a law is not aimed at restricting a minority’s religious practices, if the law in fact does so, such pernicious consequences often follow. This means that, sometimes, even though a certain religious practice is based on false beliefs and is morally wrong, nevertheless making a law to suppress that practice is wrong too. For just such reasons, our law includes provisions like the religion clauses in the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which limit the government’s involvement and interference in religious matters. . . .