NEWS STORY: Supreme Court rejects Religious Freedom Restoration Act

c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ To the dismay of many of the country’s religious leaders, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) Wednesday (June 25), saying Congress unconstitutionally usurped power belonging to federal courts and the states when it passed the measure. The 4-year-old law _ supported by a […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ To the dismay of many of the country’s religious leaders, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) Wednesday (June 25), saying Congress unconstitutionally usurped power belonging to federal courts and the states when it passed the measure.

The 4-year-old law _ supported by a broad swath of religious groups _ forced the government to show a compelling interest before it could interfere with religious practices. It was passed in reaction to a 1990 Supreme Court decision that permitted government officials to overlook the compelling interest criteria.


But, by a vote of 6-3, the high court ruled its decision takes priority.”It is this court’s precedent … which must control,”wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy for the majority.

Others ruling in favor of the decision were Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Clarence Thomas and John Paul Stevens. Dissenting were Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Stephen G. Breyer and David H. Souter.

Members of the coalition that supported RFRA voiced collective sadness and disappointment.

The decision, they said, removes legal protection for religious groups whose practices conflict with state and local regulations.”Without RFRA, the religious liberty of every American is in peril,”said J. Brent Walker, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.”Basically, what the court has done is to sacrifice religious freedom on the altar of states’ rights.” Walker and others said there was so much support for RFRA across the religious spectrum that they could not think of a single religious opponent.

Groups that weighed in Wednesday in opposition to the court’s decisions included Reform and Orthodox Jews, the United Church of Christ, Southern Baptists, the National Council of Churches, the U.S. Catholic Conference, the Church of Scientology, the liberal Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the conservative Center for Law and Religious Freedom of the Christian Legal Society.”We lost about as bad as we can lose,”said Forest Montgomery, general counsel of the National Association of Evangelicals.

The decision came in a case stemmed from the desire of officials at St. Peter the Apostle Roman Catholic Church in Boerne, Texas, to rebuild their 74-year-old sanctuary to accommodate a growing congregation. The city prevented the expansion because the church is in a historic district and renovations would violate local preservation laws.

The church sued the city in 1994, arguing that the preservation code violated RFRA and an appellate court agreed. But the city appealed the case to the Supreme Court.

The Rev. Tony Cummins, pastor of the church, said he was disappointed by the decision, but will continue to pursue his church’s case using options other than RFRA.”It is expensive to take on a government and to say that they are creating a burden,”he said.”RFRA sort of leveled the field. … Now the balance has been upset in favor of the government.” But Boerne Mayor Patrick Heath said the decision means all institutions in a community must cooperate with local ordinances and”one does not dominate the other.” Heath, who has been mayor of the city northwest of San Antonio for 10 years, said the ruling has implications for a variety of governmental agencies.”It brings some relief to local governments all across the country in terms of their zoning powers and their ability to regulate building,”he said.


Historic preservationists, prison officials and atheists were among the others who cheered the decision.

Paul Edmondson, general counsel of the Washington-based National Trust for Historic Preservation, whose organization filed a”friend-of-the-court”brief supporting Boerne, said religious structures should not receive a”wholesale exemption”from laws regarding landmarks.

Jim Turpin, legislative liaison for the American Correctional Association, said prisons were hit with many lawsuits from religious groups that formed within their walls and were trying to circumvent prison rules.”Although it was well-intentioned, RFRA’s results have had a very negative impact on the corrections system, leading to voluminous litigation,”he said.

He cited a”most egregious”example at the District of Columbia’s correctional facilities in Lorton, Va., where”a group claimed RFRA in order to get visitation privileges and that was used as a front for drugs and prostitution into the institution.” Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, applauded the court for dispelling the notion of”special rights”for religious groups:”The RFRA established one set of laws for private individuals and businesses, and another set which was applied to churches and other religious groups on a selective, discriminatory basis.” Religious groups and other RFRA supporters, for their part, began considering what recourse they had to the high court’s decision.

Some hope the court will take the dissenting advice of O’Connor and Breyer, who suggested the court reconsider its 1990 Oregon vs. Smith decision. That ruling said state anti-drug rules could stop American Indians from using peyote, a hallucinogenic drug, as part of a religious ceremony.”If Smith gets fixed, then you don’t need RFRA,”said Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee.

Others expect to encourage legislation similar to RFRA at the state levels.

And there may also be support for a constitutional amendment, one that might differ from the already proposed Religious Freedom Amendment, which deals more with the establishment clause of the First Amendment rather than the free exercise portion, which RFRA addressed.

Rep. Charles Canady, R-Fla., announced that the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution has scheduled a July 14 hearing to consider future action.”Today’s decision has left men and women of faith without meaningful recourse against laws that prevent them from exercising their religion,”he said Wednesday.


Marc Stern, legal director of the American Jewish Congress, said the RFRA decision may be more about the balance of powers between the government and the states, but it also reflects a societal cynicism about organized religion.”I don’t think … institutionalized religion occupies for many Americans quite the same sacrosanct status as it once did,”said Stern.”The fact is that the public officials in Boerne felt comfortable spending a lot of tax money taking a church to court and stopping a church’s ability to covert a church into a more useful structure.”

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