United States v. Kuch.
Judith Kuch, an ordained Boo Hoo, was indicted in Washington on marijuana and LSD charges and pleaded free exercise. On 3 July 1968 Judge Gerhard Gesell found no belief in a supreme being, no religious discipline and no ritual, and read the church's motto and its two official hymns — Puff, the Magic Dragon and Row, Row, Row Your Boat — into the record as evidence of satire. The claim failed. Every later court asked whether a joke religion is a religion has started from this opinion.
United States v. Kuch is the foundational American case on satirical religion and every later one starts from it. Judith Kuch, an ordained Boo Hoo, was indicted in the District of Columbia on marijuana and LSD counts and pleaded the free exercise clause. Judge Gerhard Gesell went looking for the marks of a religion and reported what he found instead: a Chief Boo Hoo at the head of some three hundred Boo Hoos, a symbol that was a three-eyed toad, a motto reading Victory over Horseshit, and two official hymns — Puff, the Magic Dragon and Row, Row, Row Your Boat. He found no belief in a supreme being, no religious discipline, no ritual and no tenets to guide daily existence, and held that the church was a satirical device for evading the drug laws. The reasoning reappears almost verbatim in the Nebraska Pastafarian decision of 2016 and in the Charity Commission's Jedi decision of 2016.
The Court found no solid evidence of a belief in a supreme being, a religious discipline, a ritual, or tenets to guide one's daily existence.
United States v. Kuch, 288 F. Supp. 439 (D.D.C. 1968), Gesell J. (rendered)Condensed from the opinion. Gesell also read the church's motto and its two official hymns into the record as evidence of satire.
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