(FORTUNE Magazine) – We come now to Frazee v. the Department of Employment Security, a suit that the U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to rule on. Actually, we almost met Frazee on the previous page, as Kindly Dr. Keeping Up came close to sticking this entry in ''Only in America.''

Frazee's suit is about freedom of religion. The man is an Illinoisan who in 1984 turned down an employment agency's offer of a part-time job selling clothing in Peoria. He asked for unemployment compensation even though folks who turn down jobs are ordinarily not eligible. Frazee argued, however, that his case was different. He said he had to turn down the job because it would have required him to work on at least one Sunday, which would conflict with his Christian beliefs. His lawyers argue that denying him the comp would offend the First Amendment, which guarantees Americans ''free exercise'' of religion. Frazee's case would be rock solid if only he could name some religious group he belongs to that bars working on Sundays. His problem, acknowledged from the outset, is that he can't. His closest brush with organized religion has been as a member of the Presbyterian church, which permits Sunday work. Ignoring this complication, Frazee has just kept insisting that his beliefs prevent his working on the Sabbath. The Illinois courts have ruled that his position is too idiosyncratic to qualify for First Amendment protection. To say that Frazee has a problem is not to say that he is doomed to lose in the Supreme Court. For the Court itself has a problem that keeps coming up in free-exercise cases. Determined to expand the protection of the First Amendment beyond traditional religious groups, it has utterly confused the question of what a religion is. It has expanded the concept to include moral and ethical beliefs and to protect individuals who do not regard themselves as religious (members of the Ethical Culture Society, for example). And yet, as is persuasively argued in a recent study produced by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, the Court has never seriously tried to define ''religion.'' Does Transcendental Meditation qualify? Does the Reverend Ike? Could be. Remember, this is America.