Religious Freedom Restoration Act
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The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (Template:USC, also known as RFRA) is a 1993 United States federal law aimed at preventing laws which substantially burdened a person's free exercise of their religion.
Contents |
Provisions
The law reinstated the Sherbert Test, mandating that strict scrutiny be used when determining if the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing religious freedom, has been violated. In this, the court must first determine whether the person has a claim involving a sincere religious belief, and whether the government action is a substantial burden on the person’s ability to act on that belief; if these two elements are established, then the government must prove that it is acting in furtherance of a compelling state interest, and that it has pursued that interest in the manner least restrictive, or least burdensome, to religion.
Background
The Free Exercise Clause states that the government may not pass laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court interpreted this as banning laws which burdened a person's exercise of religion (e.g. Sherbert v. Verner, Wisconsin v. Yoder). But in the 1980s the Court began allowing bans on religious activity, as long as they affected all religions equally. The key case was the 1990 Employment Division v. Smith, in which the Court upheld the state of Oregon's refusal to give unemployment benefits to two Native Americans fired from their jobs at a rehab clinic after testing positive after using peyote in a religious ceremony.
In response, both liberal (like the ACLU) and conservative groups (like the Traditional Values Coalition) joined forces to support RFRA, which would reinstate the Sherbert Test, overturning laws if "religious exercise is substantially burdened" by them, unless the law is the "least restrictive means" of furthering a compelling state interest. The act passed the House unanimously and the Senate 97 to 3 and was signed into law by U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Challenges
In 1997, part of this act was overturned by the United States Supreme Court because it overstepped Congress's power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment. [1]
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio wanted to enlarge a church in Boerne, Texas. But a Boerne ordinance protected the church as a historic landmark and did not permit it to be torn down. The church sued, citing RFRA, and in the resulting case, City of Boerne v. Flores, the Supreme Court struck down the RFRA, stating that Congress had stepped beyond their power of enforcement.
However, most scholars believe RFRA still applies to federal acts (the U.S. Congress can modify the interpretation of their own laws, after all) and a number of states have passed so-called mini-RFRAs, applying the rule to the laws of their own state.
This interpretation was confirmed on February 21, 2006, as the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against the government in Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, which involved the use of an illegal substance in a religious ceremony, decisively stating that the federal government must show a compelling state interest in restricting religious freedom.
While the federal law is no longer applicable to the states, many states have passed their own mini-RFRAs, achieving the same effect.
External links
- Text of the statute
- Unconstitutional Restoration - A Princeton Law Review article on the history, interpretation, and status of the Act.