I’m with your reader, Jonah. Shouldn’t be a First Amendment issue, but — because of the expansion of government — not the end of the matter.

FWIW, I think Justice Scalia has had the best approach on the intersection of religion and government regulation: A neutral law (i.e., not expressly hostile to religion) of general applicability (i.e., not targeted at any particular group, religious or not) does not violate First Amendment free-exercise rights. For example, the narcotics laws, which bar everyone’s possession and use of illegal drugs, pass muster even though this means some sects which are thus barred from using marijuana or peyote in their rites are barred from doing so. Any other standard (a) promotes chaos because every person becomes a law unto himself, and (b) necessarily entangles government in the unseemly (for government) business of deciding which religious practices are important enough to be permitted and which not.