Religion on Trial

This chapter highlights the social actors who have perhaps the most outsized influence on religious classification in the modern United States: judges. In 1981, MOVE’s claims to religious legitimacy received their day in court. A MOVE person, Frank Africa, who was then incarcerated in a Pennsylvania state prison, requested from the prison a religious accommodation for his MOVE diet. The prison denied his request, and Frank appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Before the court could decide on Frank’s request, the judges had to first determine whether or not MOVE was a religion.