
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990                   TAG: 9005110225
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

CHURCHES ASK COURT REVIEW OF DRUG RULING

An unusual coalition of religious groups asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to reconsider its decision letting states outlaw the use of illegal drugs as a religious practice.

"I seriously doubt these groups have ever been in the same room together, much less have ever joined in so important an undertaking," Oliver Thomas of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs told reporters.

The April 17 high court ruling said members of the Native American Church had no constitutional right to take the hallucinogenic drug peyote during religious ceremonies.

Officials from the American Jewish Congress, the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Council of Churches also participated in a news conference held after the petition for rehearing was filed with the court.

Others supporting the petition included the Presbyterian Church USA, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, American Friends Service Committee, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Christian Legal Society.

Religious leaders were more disturbed by the court's method of deciding the case than by the decision itself.

Five members of 6-3 court majority agreed that religious beliefs cannot excuse failure to comply with "otherwise valid laws prohibiting conduct states are free to regulate."

by CNB