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"Pa. Senate considering religious freedom measure"

by George Strawley (AP, November 20, 2002)

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Pennsylvania could become the 10th state to pass a bill meant to give new protections to religious groups but criticized by opponents as giving religion free rein to ignore many laws.

Called the Religious Freedom Protection Act, the bill currently before the Senate would allow laws that burden a person's religious practice or belief to be challenged in court if the state lacks a compelling interest in passing the laws. Any law passed also must be as least restrictive of religion as possible.

Nine states have passed religious freedom acts and two states have made similar changes in their constitutions, according to legislative officials.

"It's a fairly simple bill, but it has lots and lots of wrinkles," said Drew Crompton, an aide to Sen. Robert C. Jubelirer, prime sponsor of the measure.

Under the bill, for example, if the Legislature passed a law banning the wearing of yarmulkes in the Capitol, state employees could still wear the Jewish headpieces unless the state could prove a compelling reason for banning them, Crompton said.

But a Muslim woman who wants to wear a veil over her face for her driver's license photo could not have her license picture taken that way because there is a compelling state interest in producing a driver's license that shows the driver's identity, Crompton said.

"The state can burden someone's religion," under the bill, Crompton said. "It just has to show a compelling state interest."

Critics said the bill is excessively broad and has resulted in religious groups successfully arguing for exemptions from important laws in other states.

"It's a wrong-headed approach," said Marci Hamilton, a Washington Crossing resident and law professor at Yeshiva University in New York.

"If there are religious institutions that need exemptions from particular laws, then that ought to be publicly debated and a decision made about whether they would get out from under that particular law," she said. "But this across-the-board assistance for religious entities undermines the public good."

The bill, which contains an exception for cases of abuse, has garnered the support of a broad range of religious groups in Pennsylvania, Crompton said. They include the Keystone Christian Education Association, Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, Pennsylvania Family Institute and the Jewish Coalition, he said.

Across the country, similar bills have had the backing of mostly conservative groups, said Hamilton, who represented the city of Boerne, Texas, in a case in which the Supreme Court declared a federal version of the law unconstitutional in 1997.

Even with the exemption for abuse cases, the bill could be cited to allow religious groups that engage in corporal punishment or refuse to provide needed medical treatment for children to block prosecutions, Hamilton said. It has been used in other states to let churches get around land-use regulations that may restrict the size of a building or the amount of parking it is allowed to have, she said.

"There are a lot of cases out there. It's all over the federal courts," Hamilton said.

However, Crompton said the law contains a legal test of compelling state interest that can be applied fairly across the board.

"The wrong approach is to write one specific rule after another with individual interpretations," Crompton said.

The legislative director for the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said it was unclear what the result of the bill would be.

"We have a lot of questions about whether it's going to interfere with civil rights cases, the regulation of child care," said Larry Frankel of the ACLU. "It's hard to understand the scope."