ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, February 19, 1997 TAG: 9702190075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
What began as a landmark-preservation squabble in a small Texas town has become a constitutional test of religious freedom.
The original question that led to Wednesday's argument in the Supreme Court was whether a Catholic church could enlarge its sanctuary. But the case has become, according to the Rev. Oliver Thomas of the National Council of Churches of Christ, ``the most important religious-freedom case the Supreme Court has ever had to decide.''
``It affects every single religious organization and individual in the United States, no matter their belief,'' said Thomas, one of many religious leaders with a vital interest in the outcome.
At issue is the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 federal law aimed at curbing governmental interference with Americans' spiritual lives.
A Catholic archbishop sued after Boerne, Texas, officials thwarted a church's attempt to tear down all but the facade of its 1920s building and erect a larger sanctuary.
Archbishop P.F. Flores' lawsuit invoked the 1993 law, which Congress enacted in response to a 1990 Supreme Court decision that said laws otherwise neutral toward religion are not unconstitutional simply because they may infringe on some people's religious beliefs.
The 1990 decision came in an Oregon case about American Indian rituals. The court found no constitutional right to take the hallucinogenic drug peyote as a religious practice.
Religious and civil rights groups who pushed for congressional action contended that the court, in the rationale used to decide the peyote case, had turned its back on vigorously protecting religious rights.
The groups traced Supreme Court rulings back to 1963 that established a much tougher standard. Those rulings said government could not pass or enforce laws restricting religious liberty unless it showed a ``compelling state interest'' and used the ``least restrictive means'' for achieving the goals.
In the 1993 law, Congress restored the tougher standard. It said the federal, state and local officials had to show a ``compelling reason'' before they imposed a ``substantial burden'' on someone's religious beliefs.
Officials in the Texas city are asking the Supreme Court to rule that the law violates the 10th Amendment rights of states and local governments by forcing them to allow more protection for religious beliefs than the Constitution requires.
A federal appeals court rejected those arguments. But what if the Supreme Court, in a decision expected by July, agrees with Boerne officials?
``It would be a devastating blow. This is a matter of survival to the religious community,'' said Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
He and other religious leaders point to recent victories that probably would have been defeats without the benefit of the 1993 law:
* A group of Jehovah's Witnesses in California successfully sued over having to take a loyalty oath as a condition of employment with the state.
* An Amish group in Wisconsin escaped fines for refusing to post bright orange safety triangles, which they object to as too ``worldly,'' on their horse-drawn buggies.
* An American Indian prison guard in New York successfully sued after he was suspended for refusing, for religious reasons, to cut his hair.
The religious leaders also cite defeats suffered in the years between the peyote ruling and enactment of the federal law. They include a failed attempt by Hmong families in Rhode Island to prevent autopsies for relatives because they believe the procedure destroys the possibility of everlasting life.
But the law also has many opponents, including 13 states that want the court to strike it down.
In a brief submitted by Ohio Attorney General Betty Montgomery, they contend the law has ``substantially impeded the states' efforts to run their prisons'' because it increasingly is invoked by inmates seeking special privileges.
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