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[Vol. 3 ments, they should realize that they tread on ground which is largely uncharted by any judicial authority bearing directly on the validity of the disruption and restrictive rules themselves. These comments should be clearly understood to be new arguments that might be successfully used in litigation. The conscientious objector must not be encouraged to rely on such success and to disobey, because of such reliance, even a flagrantly disruptive work order, in the expectation that if he is prosecuted for such refusal these arguments will bring about his acquittal.

paying jobs) without due process; denial of equal justice (by permitting the boards to deny one CO work that they have approved for another CO); inflicting punishment of a nature beyond permissible administrative penalty and which ought to be reserved to judicial process.

APPENDIX

Summary Of The Specific Restrictive Rules

These rules culled from various parts of the LBMs are enumerated here in the order in which they appear, first in LBM 64 and then, continuing, in LBM

98.

a. Whenever possible, the work should be performed outside of the community in which the registrant resides. (LBM 64, para. 1).

b. The position should be one that cannot readily be filled from the available competitive labor force, or from civil service or merit registers of the Federal, State or local governments. . . . (LBM 64, para. 1).

c. The conscientious objector's pay should be reasonably comparable to the pay, allowances and other benefits received by the man inducted into the Armed forces. . . . (LBM 98, para. 2).

d. [H]is assignment should be beyond commuting distance from his home. (LBM 98, para. 2).

e. It is not advisable to assign a I-O registrant to a job that is sought after by other qualified people.... (LBM 98, para. 3).

f. [A] job which qualifies a registrant for occupational deferment should never be deemed appropriate alternative service, since the registrant would not be reached for I-W service while he was eligible for occupational deferment. (LBM 98, para. 3).

g. Consideration should be given to utilization of skills... but... it is not always practicable to assign a man to a job where he will be able to utilize all of his special skills. (LBM 98, para. 4).

On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

BRIEF FOR THE AMERICAN ETHICAL UNION AS AMICUS CURIAE

The Interest of the American Ethical Union

This brief is submitted on behalf of the American Ethical Union with the consent, filed with this Court, of both parties.

The American Ethical Union is a federation of the Ethical Culture Societies and Fellowships in the United States, which, collectively, constitute a liberal religious fellowship know as the "Ethical Movement" or the "Ethi

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cal Culture Movement". The first Ethical Culture Society was founded in New York City in 1876 by Dr. Felix Adler. The Movement has had a marked growth in recent years. Since 1949 membership has doubled and the number of Societies and Fellowships has increased four-fold.

There are today thirty Societies and Fellowships of the American Ethical Union in eleven states and the District of Columbia. Through its membership in the International Humanist and Ethical Union, the American Ethical Union is part of a world-wide association of Humanist and Ethical Culture groups. At the third International Congress held in Oslo in 1962, delegates attended from 24 countries including the United States, Great Britain, Iran, Holland, Norway, Germany, Japan and Colombia.

Ethical Culture has been recognized as one of those "religions in this country which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God." Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U. S. 488 at 495, n. 11. Ethical Culture is listed as a religion in the Census of Religious Bodies published by the Federal Government,1 and in various religious publications2 and general reference works. Federal tax exemption rulings have been issued

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1. U. S. Bureau of the Census, Dep't of Commerce, Religious Bodies, 1936 (1941).

2. Yearbook of American Churches (Landis ed. 1958); A Guide to the Religions of America (Rosten ed. 1955); Burtt, Types of Religious Philosophy (1939); Ferm, ed. Religion in the Twentieth Century (1948); 5 Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (Hastings ed. 1928).

3. Hutchinson, Twentieth Century Encyclopedia (rev. ed. 1952); 21 Dictionary of American Biography (Starr ed. 1944); 8 Ency clopedia Brittanica (14th ed. 1932); 10 Encyclopedia Americana (1947 ed.).

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to the American Ethical Union and to the various Ethical societies. The District of Columbia Society has been held to be "a religious corporation or society," the building of which "is one primarily and regularly used by its congregation for public religious worship," within the meaning of the District of Columbia Code provision exempting property of "religious societies" from certain local taxes. Washington Ethical Society v. District of Columbia, 249 F. 2d 127 (D. C. Cir. 1957).

All the Ethical Culture Societies and Fellowships conduct services and most conduct religious schools for children which meet regularly on Sunday mornings. The Leaders of the Ethical Culture Societies, some of them drawn from the ordained ministry of other religious groups, are required to have advanced degrees, post-graduate study in religion and philosophy and to take an intensive course of training before appointment and admission to the Fraternity of Leaders of the American Ethical Union. The Leaders provide the services customarily performed by ministers of religion, such as officiating at marriages, funerals and naming ceremonies, and counselling members of the Societies on ethical and moral problems.

A fundamental tenet of Ethical Culture is the freedom of each individual to determine for himself whether or not to relate his religious aspirations to the existence of a Supreme Being. The Ethical Movement has no fixed creed or dogma, and requires no particular theological beliefs of its members. It

"holds that, although the universe which we all share, speaks to us in different accents or tongues, no one can

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be sure, or prove to others, which one is true. The Ethical Movement therefore, is uncommitted on theological and metaphysical questions. Whether one does or does not believe in God, prayer or immortality, is one's own affair. Membership in an Ethical Society is not conditioned on acceptance or rejection of any one answer to such question. In the Ethical Movement the good life and the rights and duties of human beings are looked upon as stemming from man's relations to man in the family of mankind." [Do You Know the Ethical Movement?, pamphlet published by the American Ethical Union, 2 West 64th Street, New York 23, N. Y. p. 3]

The American Ethical Union is concerned with any Governmental elevation and approval of theism as the only true religion and the deprecation of its own religious pattern. It has an interest in the continued recognition of Ethical Culture as a religion for all purposes, including the right of its members to conscientious objector status on an equal basis with adherents of other faiths. It has a further interest in preserving the rights of individual conscience free from Governmental imposition of any rigid orthodox formula defining religion.

ARGUMENT

The First and Fifth Amendments prohibit discrimination against conscientious objectors who hold non-theistic beliefs.

Endeavoring to avoid repetition of other briefs herein, we will present in this brief considerations which demonstrate, we believe, the unconstitutionality of the Government's use of belief in a Supreme Being as the criterion of