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("Church Executive,"
January
6, 2003)
The same federal appeals court that
last
year declared the words "under God" in the Pledge of
Allegiance
unconstitutional has upheld a law designed to protect religious freedom
from
state interference.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously
upheld the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which
offers
some protection against government actions -- such as zoning laws and
prison
rules -- that can be used to restrict religious practice.
The Dec. 27 ruling turned back a challenge from the state of California.
A
group of Muslim inmates at Solano State Prison for Men in Vacaville sued
state officials in 1996 because they prohibited the men from growing
beards
or attending Friday prayer services. The prisoners said Islam required
the
beards and worship attendance. The prisoners sued under the First and
14th
Amendments to the Constitution, saying their rights to free exercise of
religion were being unfairly infringed.
After Congress passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized
Persons
Act in 2000, the inmates added a RLUIPA claim to their ongoing case.
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act encourages
states
and municipalities to refrain from imposing "substantial"
burdens
on any religious practice of individuals or groups unless the government
has
a significant reason for doing so. The act was Congress' second attempt
to
rectify a problem that religious-liberty advocates say was created by a
1990
U.S. Supreme Court decision.
The act uses the commerce and spending clauses of the Constitution to
withhold federal funding from states or municipalities that
substantially
burden religious practice without a reason that serves a greater state
interest. Other laws use the same principle to encourage state and local
governments to adopt certain policies, such as the law that withholds
federal
highway funds to states that do not raise their drinking age to 21.
In 1993 Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to try to
reinstate the strong legal protections for religious practice that
existed
prior to the 1990 Supreme Court ruling. The 1993 act prohibited federal,
state and municipal governments from burdening religious practice
without a
compelling cause. But the Supreme Court in 1997 overturned the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act as it applied to state and local governments,
saying
it unconstitutionally imposed federal standards on those
governments.
The newer Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act has a
similar
effect to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but it uses federal
coercion
-- in the form of funding restrictions -- rather than compulsion to
achieve
its goal.
In the case of the Muslim prisoners, a lower court ruled the state of
California could not prohibit the men from growing beards or attending
Friday
prayer services. State officials appealed to the 9th Circuit.
The opinion accompanying the 9th Circuit's decision, written by Judge
Dorothy
Nelson, said the state was incorrect to claim that the Religious Land
Use and
Institutionalized Persons Act violates the First Amendment. Instead, the
court said, the statute does just the opposite by extending the First
Amendment's protections.
"Protecting religious worship in institutions from substantial and
illegitimate burdens does promote the general welfare," Nelson
wrote.
"The First Amendment, by prohibiting laws that proscribe the free
exercise of religion, demonstrates the great value placed on protecting
religious worship from impermissible government intrusion. By ensuring
that
governments do not act to burden the exercise of religion in
institutions,
RLUIPA is clearly in line with this positive constitutional
value."
The opinion also rejected two other challenges from the state of
California:
that RLUIPA was not authorized by the constitution's spending clause and
that
its enactment to rectify a court decision violated the constitutional
separation of powers between branches of the federal government.
Members of the broad coalition that supported both the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act and RLUIPA hailed the most recent ruling. "The
decision
is a welcome addition to the growing number of cases upholding the
constitutionality of RLUIPA," said Holly Hollman, general counsel
for
the Washington-based Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.
A request for comment from the California Attorney General's office was
not
answered by press time. The attorney general's office had not determined
whether it would appeal the ruling as of Dec. 28, according to the San
Francisco Chronicle.
The case is Mayweathers vs. Newland.
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