Different Ruling in Reynolds v. United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_v._United_States

In OTL, this Supreme Court decision upheld that "religious duty" was not a defense to a criminal indictment. The case was one regarding the Mormon practice of polygamy.

WI the court made a slightly different ruling, one that still upheld the conviction of Reynolds and the anti-polygamy laws but kept open the possibility of a "religious duty" defense in other criminal cases?

My reasoning is: Mormon polygamy was never a "religious duty" in the sense of being literally mandatory for salvation. A man would not go to hell (or the Mormon equivalent afterlife state) for having only one wife, or even no wife at all.

So, ITTL, the Supreme Court rules against Reynolds based on the matter of fact that polygamy is not a "religious duty", but leave open the possibility that the First Amendment allows for religious exemption from laws which conflict with true "religious duties" where the defendant fears Divine punishment for following the law.

How would this affect the future of the United States?
 
Then I think you get the same decision as OTL in a later case. As quoted in the decision "" The court considered that if polygamy was allowed, someone might eventually argue that human sacrifice was a necessary part of their religion, and "to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.""

To get a Supreme Court ruling in the 1870s that religious belief trumps the law you'd need a pretty big POD. It would create a totally unworkable situation, especially when people's religion beliefs conflicted.
 
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