WASHINGTON (ABP) — A unanimous Supreme Court said Feb. 21 that a federal religious-freedom law protects an obscure sect that practices sacramental use of a hallucinogenic tea.
In its first major religious-freedom ruling under Chief Justice John Roberts, the court forcefully rejected the Bush administration's argument that importation of the tea should be banned under federal drug laws.
The case, Gonzales v. O Centro, involves the New Mexico branch of the Uniao do Vegetal religion. UDV is a Brazilian sect that blends elements of Christianity and native religions. The Santa Fe-based congregation has about 130 members, according to court papers.
In 1999, federal officials attempted to prevent church members from importing hoasca, a tea made from a plant that contains a psychotropic chemical banned under the federal Controlled Substances Act. In one of their worship rituals, UDV adherents drink the tea, which is ritually brewed from local plants and blessed by church members in Brazil before exportation.
The congregation, formally known as the O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal, then sued the government. They claimed that the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) prohibits federal officials from unduly burdening the free exercise of their religion by halting imports of hoasca.
Congress passed RFRA to re-establish a protection for religious groups that the high court brushed aside in a 1990 decision, Employment Division v. Smith. RFRA says that the federal government cannot impose a “substantial burden” on an individual's or group's free exercise of religion unless the burden: “(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”
Representatives for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — who inherited the case from his predecessor at the Justice Department, John Ashcroft — argued that uniform enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act was itself a sufficient reason to ban hoasca importation. Government attorneys said that interest encompassed protecting the health of UDV members, preventing the diversion of hoasca to non-religious recreational uses, and complying with the terms of a United Nations treaty on hallucinogenic drugs to which the United States is a party.
But Roberts, writing the court's opinion, rejected all three of those arguments. He noted that lower courts had found the first two to be balanced by mitigating evidence, and that the government had not presented sufficient evidence to prove the last.
“We do not doubt the validity of these interests, any more than we doubt the general interest in promoting public health and safety by enforcing the Controlled Substances Act, but under RFRA invocation of such general interests [as sufficient for the government to impose burdens on religious freedom], standing alone, is not enough,” Roberts wrote.
Roberts said the Justice Department's argument — that allowing no exceptions to the Controlled Substances Act was the best way of enforcing it in light of RFRA — missed RFRA's very point.
“The government's argument echoes the classic rejoinder of bureaucrats throughout history: If I make an exception for you, I'll have to make one for everybody, no exceptions,” he wrote. “But RFRA operates by mandating consideration, under the compelling interest test, of exceptions to 'rule[s] of general applicability.'”
Roberts also said the government's argument was undermined by the fact that Congress has long allowed an unchallenged exception to drug laws for members of the Native American Church. They use the hallucinogenic drug peyote in some worship services.
“If such use is permitted…for hundreds of thousands of Native Americans practicing their faith, it is difficult to see how those same findings alone can preclude any consideration of a similar exception for the 130 or so American members of the UDV who want to practice theirs,” he wrote.
An attorney for a Washington-based group that has been a leader in supporting RFRA said the court's decision was a resounding victory for the law.
The opinion upholds a strong interpretation of the act “in light of the government's kind of aggressive position…that would have severely restricted the statute's effect,” said Holly Hollman, general counsel of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “The government had argued a categorical approach that would have denied the UDV church, basically, their day in court under the statute.”
BJC and several other religious organizations, such as the National Association of Evangelicals, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the UDV adherents. Hollman said the groups wanted to make sure that RFRA continues to protect religion from governmental encroachment — even when the practices it protects may seem strange or even immoral to mainstream Christians.
Hollman also said the Bush administration seemed to have seen conflict between two laws — RFRA and the Controlled Substances Act — in the case, and decided to enforce the drug law more forcefully than the religion law. But the court seemed to say that both laws must be taken together. “The easy way to explain that is that the [RFRA] statute contemplates that religious practice will, at times, be in conflict with laws, and it provides a way that the courts should analyze religious claims,” she said.
However, Hollman said, the decision — since it turned on interpretation of congressional statues rather than dealing directly with the First Amendment — does not break new constitutional ground. “I guess, under the Smith decision, the [First Amendment's] free exercise clause still is not as strong as it used to be,” she said. “But at least this case upholds RFRA, which provides important additional protection for the free exercise of religion.”
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