Religious Freedom Law and the Protection of Sacred Sites

Abstract

Modern religious freedom law in the Euro-American human rights tradition developed chiefly as a response to challenges raised by the religious beliefs and practices of adherents of Christian denominations. This chapter discusses the principles of United States (US) religious freedom law. It then explains the importance of sacred sites for the traditional religions of American indigenous peoples. The chapter analyses US case law in order to show that these standards have not been applied to the protection of the religious interests of believers of indigenous religions in the United States. It explores a new framework for protecting the interests of indigenous believers at sacred sites should be developed in order to overcome the Western-religious cultural bias underlying conventional religious freedom law. The chapter suggests that the protection of indigenous American religions can only be reached by widening the scope of religious freedom rights, as they are defined in national and international law, by making them consistent with indigenous people's rights.