Blog 4 Assignment

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act By: Jarred Graves

First off I would like to appologize, I had planned this assignment as a Voice Thread, Yet I am working with substandard technology. I believe this argument would have been more effective and would have shown more emotion and passion with a Voice Thread. I hope this Blog will have the same impact in words and not sound like a list of facts, once again I appologize for the inconvinience.

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, is a United States Federal Law that protects the free exercise of religion. It also states that the United States Federal Government should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification to restore the compelling interest test as set forth in Sherbert v. Verner (1963) and Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) . Most importantly, the RFRA puts the burden of proof on the government to provide evidence of a compelling interest in cases of freedom of religion, rather than simply state it.

The following cases are summarized to give some history and examples why the RFRA came into existence…

Jonas Yoder and Wallace Miller, both members of the Old Order Amish religion, and Adin Yutzy, a member of the Conservative Amish Mennonite Church, were prosecuted under a Wisconsin law that required all children to attend public schools until age 16. The three parents refused to send their children to such schools after the eighth grade, arguing that high school attendance was contrary to their religious beliefs.

Adeil Sherbert, a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was fired from her job after she refused to work on Saturday, the Sabbath Day of her faith. The South Carolina Employment Security Commission denied her benefits, finding unacceptable her religious justification for refusing Saturday work.

The Archbishop of San Antonio sued local zoning authorities for violating his rights under the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), by denying him a permit to expand his church in Boerne, Texas. Boerne's zoning authorities argued that the Archbishop's church was located in a historic preservation district governed by an ordinance forbidding new construction, and that the RFRA was unconstitutional insofar as it sought to override this local preservation ordinance. On appeal from the Fifth Circuit's reversal of a District Court's finding against Archbishop Flores, the Court granted Boerne's request for certiorari.

Two Native Americans who worked as counselors for a private drug rehabilitation organization, ingested peyote -- a powerful hallucinogen -- as part of their religious ceremonies as members of the Native American Church. As a result of this conduct, the rehabilitation organization fired the counselors. The counselors filed a claim for unemployment compensation. The government denied them benefits because the reason for their dismissal was considered work-related "misconduct." The counselors lost their battle in state court. But the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Oregon Supreme Court's judgment against the disgruntled employees, and returned the case to the Oregon courts to determine whether or not sacramental use of illegal drugs violated Oregon's state drug laws (485 U.S. 660 (1988)). On remand, the Oregon Supreme Court concluded that while Oregon drug law prohibited the consumption of illegal drugs for sacramental religious uses, this prohibition violated the free exercise clause. The case returned to the U.S. Supreme Court in this new posture.

According to The Costitution of The United States of America, the 1st Amendment states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Personally I don’t care what religion one may be, they should be able to practice without persecution, of course under reasonable circumstances. The only people that would disagree with this act, in my opinion, would be people with no religion that might look at a reason for leave or practice of religion as an unrealistic waste of time or production speed bump. As a Christian, I believe in fighting for these rights because these issues are of the utmost importance to me in my life, as they are to the persecuted in these cases.