United States v. Seeger

The Seeger decision came at a time when American military involvement in Vietnam was increasing. As casualties mounted after the mid-1960s, more and more young men were drafted and sent to fight an officially undeclared war on foreign soil. Many Americans felt the reasons for U.S. involvement were not clear, and increasing numbers questioned and then protested the war. The draft became a central issue. Many challenged the government by defying the draft law; they burned draft cards and refused induction. Though the Supreme Court found that the federal statute criminalizing draft card burning did not violate the First Amendment, the Court did protect dissent in rulings that Kermit L. Hall in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States claimed "reflected the mood of an American public growing increasingly disaffected with the Vietnam conflict." Seeger, Hall suggested, "made it easier for young men who did not wish to participate in the war to gain exemption from military service as conscientious objectors." Hall believed that the Court interpreted religious belief very broadly because a literal reading of the draft law-requiring a belief in a Supreme Being--would violate the First Amendment's prohibition against the establishment of religion. The Seeger ruling, Hall concluded, "blatantly distorted the intent of Congress" and "increased the numbers of men who could avoid serving in an increasingly unpopular war." It is important to note, however, that the Court, in Gillette v. United States (1971), did not grant conscientious objector status to persons who opposed only what they considered to be unjust conflicts.

In 1967, Congress revised the draft laws again. The Military Selective Service Act of 1967 reflected the Seeger decision, and took out the requirement in the exemption clause that specified belief in a Supreme Being:

[Nothing] contained in this Act shall be construed to require any person to be subject to combatant training and service in the land or naval forces of the United States who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form. As used in this subsection, the term religious training and belief does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views, or a merely personal code.

And in 1970, the Court construed the conscientious exemption provision to include persons who object to war on moral or ethical grounds based on beliefs "held with the strength of traditional religious convictions" (Welsh v. United States).

The draft ended in 1973, when the United States converted to an all-volunteer military. By April of 1975, men were no longer required to register with their draft boards. But registration was reimposed by President Carter in 1980 after the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and continues as a precaution against underestimating the number of military personnel needed in a future crisis.