Nevada Court Says Humanism is Not a Religion

Earlier this week a Nevada federal district court ruled that Humanism does not qualify as a religion for the purpose of the Free Exercise or Establishment Clause (see here).  The main concern of the court was that if religion is defined as any symbol or belief to which an individual ascribes serious significance, then so many things will fall under that umbrella that virtually any action by the government could be seen as favoring one religion over another.  In other words, attributing special status to religion requires that religion be narrowly enough defined to prevent the second amendment from paralyzing the government.

It is unclear what the long-term effects of this ruling will be.  It does go against the long-run trend of including more and more systems of belief under the protections afforded to religion.