Editorial: The Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Abstract

As this journal has previously noted, United States Supreme Court on 17 April 1990, in Oregon Employment Divi sion v. Smith,1 ruled that state of Oregon could deny un employment compensation benefits to drug rehabilitation counselors who were terminated from state employment be cause of their sacramental use of peyote in ceremonies of Native American Church. Far beyond decision itself was inevitable storm of controversy that was evoked by Court's rationale for majority opinion, which said in effect that state test, which Court had for almost three decades applied to its rulings on Free Exercise Clause, need not apply if a given law is in conflict with a reli gious practice. impact of Court's ruling stands to have a devastating impact on previously held protections enunciated by Court in its interpretation of Free Exercise Clause. No longer need a state accommodate its laws to religious convictions and practices of an individual's free exercise of reli gion. In words of Court, The right of free exercise does not relieve [an] individual of obligation to comply with [a] valid or neutral law of general applicability on [the] ground that [the] law proscribes, or requires, conduct that is contrary to its reli gious practice, as long as [the] law does not violate other consti tutional protections. In his sweeping conclusion in which compelling state interest test is eliminated from Free Ex ercise Clause, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, We cannot afford luxury of deeming presumptively invalid . . . every regula tion of conduct that does not protect an of highest order. Thereby, primary basis for protection of constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religion was virtually emasculated from Bill of Rights.