U.S. Needs Outweigh Those of Religions, Court Rules

The Supreme Court, backing away from its once staunch protection of the rights of religious minorities, held Tuesday that the government need not bend its rules or alter its plans to accommodate a citizen’s practice of his religion.

On a 5-3 vote, a conservative court majority overturned a lower court ruling from San Francisco and said the federal government could build a logging road through a Northern California forest that is considered sacred land by Indians.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor conceded that the road “could have devastating effect on traditional Indian religious practices” because tribal burial sites would be disturbed. But that harm to religious practice need not deter the government, she said.

“However much we might wish it were otherwise, government simply could not operate if it were required to satisfy every citizen’s religious needs and desires,” O’Connor wrote for the court. “The First Amendment must apply to all citizens alike and it can give to none of them a veto over public programs that do not prohibit the free exercise of religion.”

Although it is not clear whether the road can be built under current environmental law, the court’s opinion represents a sharp break from rulings dating back to 1962 in which the justices have gone to great lengths to protect claims of the “free exercise of religion” against the needs of government.

In 1962, the court struck down a state law that denied unemployment benefits to people who were not available for work six days a week because a member of the Seventh-day Adventist church said Saturday work conflicted with her religion. In 1971, the court said Wisconsin could not apply its compulsory schooling law to Amish children because their parents said secondary-level schooling conflicted with their religion.

Lower courts have relied on these rulings in scores of related cases to rule that the government must accommodate its programs to the practice of religion. In this case, however, the court said the practice of religion must accommodate the needs of the government.

In dissent, Justice William J. Brennan Jr. called the court’s ruling “astonishing” and said it “essentially leaves Native Americans with absolutely no constitutional protection against perhaps the gravest threat to their religious practices.” He was joined by fellow Justices Thurgood Marshall and Harry A. Blackmun. The three generally represent the liberal wing of the court. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who joined the court after the case was argued, did not participate.

Six-Mile Road Wanted

The case arose in 1977 when the U.S. Forest Service said it wanted to build a six-mile road through the Chimney Rock section of the Six Rivers National Forest in Del Norte County. The government said the road was needed to open the area to logging. The Yurok, Karok and Tolowa Indians protested the plan, saying it would “cause serious and irreparable damage” to lands sacred to them.

Although an environmental report urged that the road not be built, the Forest Service said in 1982 that it would go ahead with a route that bypassed the most sacred Indian sites. Lawyers for the Indians filed suit in federal court in San Francisco, contending that the plan violated their First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion.

Judge Stanley A. Weigel ruled for the Indians in 1984 and halted the construction plans. The U.S. 9th Circuit of Appeals upheld this judgment in 1985 and again in 1987.

In its appeal to the high court, the Justice Department said the practical impact of the lower court rulings was to turn over public lands to a private party. O’Connor agreed, writing that upholding the Indians’ claim “could easily require de facto beneficial ownership of some rather spacious tracts of public property.”

Relies on 1986 Ruling

In her opinion in the case (Lyng vs. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assn., 87-1013), O’Connor relied heavily on a 1986 ruling in which the high court dismissed the claims of an American Indian father living in Pennsylvania who said that his daughter’s spirit would be “robbed” if she were given a Social Security number.

That decision, considered a minor ruling at the time, established the principle that the government need not arrange “its own internal affairs” to suit the needs of religious practice, she said.

O’Connor said, however, that her opinion should not “be read to encourage government insensitivity to the religious needs of any citizen.” She praised Forest Service officials for being “solicitous” in attempting to avoid the most sacred Indian sites.

Nevertheless, the future of the six-mile road remains in question. In 1984, Congress passed the California Wilderness Act, which declared much of the land in the Six Rivers Forest off limits to logging. Moreover, the district judge held up the project because of possible violations of environmental law, a conclusion that the high court left intact.