Religious Freedom Act Facing High Court Test

Every Sunday, parishioners at St. Peter’s Catholic Church walk past their Mission-style stone church and file instead into an old gymnasium for their morning worship. The Rev. Tony Cummins leads Mass in the cavernous metal building that also doubles as a senior citizens center, praying beneath the basketball hoops and alongside the other trappings of the community center.

“Look, Mommy, God has a television set,” Cummins recalled one boy saying after the youth had spied the large console television. “In some sense, it is not a great place to come and worship,” the priest added.

It is not a lack of money that keeps parishioners from expanding the historic house of worship. It is because the city of Boerne will not let them. In the early 1990s, St. Peter’s outgrew the 220-seat church. But a fund-raising campaign and $1-million building plan ran up against a city preservation law that covers about 130 properties along the main street of this small town 20 miles north of San Antonio.

That law stopped the parish’s plan to tear down all but the front facade of its 1923 field stone church and replace it with a bigger, modern structure. It also led the Roman Catholic Church to sue, arguing that the denial of the building permit unfairly burdens the free exercise of religion.

Now the case is before the Supreme Court, turning what was once only a local dispute into a matter of national prominence. A ruling could affect any local or state law deemed in some way to interfere with the practice of religion.

P.F. Flores, the archbishop of San Antonio, brought the case against the city using the 4-year-old federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That law, which says government can infringe on religious practice only if it has a “compelling interest” in doing so, gives churches and synagogues broad protection.

The question facing the nine justices when they hear arguments later this month is whether Congress acted within its powers when it tried to write into the statute more protection for religious freedom than the Supreme Court earlier had found in the Constitution.

Supporters of the law say it protects the nation’s religious diversity and ensures that minority practices will not be crushed. But opponents say the law interferes with state and municipal authority and forces governments to be unnecessarily tolerant.

Prison officials argue that the law is being abused by inmates who demand special food, clothing and other privileges by claiming it is in keeping with their religion.

The federal law also has been used to keep open a homeless feeding program at a Presbyterian church in the District of Columbia, to protect Jehovah’s Witnesses from being subjected to loyalty oaths as a condition of employment at a California community college, and to allow prisoners in Wisconsin to wear crucifixes and other religious jewelry.

“This is the most important church-state case ever to come before the Supreme Court,” said Oliver Thomas, an attorney for the National Council of Churches and one of the lawyers who pressed for the 1993 law. “Every single religious person or organization in America will be affected by the ruling, whether small or large, liberal or conservative.”

The way Cummins sees it, his parishioners “are being deprived of their right to worship as they want.”

The church’s lawyer, University of Texas law professor Douglas Laycock, said Congress was right to worry that laws could unfairly burden religious practice. Government motives are often difficult to prove, he said, making it important for lawmakers to force government to demonstrate a compelling interest in enforcing a law, so no particular religion is intentionally targeted or unintentionally hurt.

City officials say they are trying to protect a sense of history. St. Peter’s Church is a striking example of Mission revival architecture, they say, that harks back to the original Spanish missions of South Texas.

“We want to preserve the visible artifacts of this town’s history,” said Mayor Patrick Heath. If churches get an exemption, he said, other nonprofit organizations will seek one.

It was only a few months after the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act was adopted that St. Peter’s decided to fight. When a federal district court first heard the case, it declared the federal law unconstitutional. The archbishop appealed and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed the decision, unanimously upholding the act’s constitutionality. The appeals court said the federal law could be regarded as Congress’ effort to ensure enforcement of the protections of the 1st Amendment regarding free exercise of religion.

The Justice Department is siding with the church.

Marci A. Hamilton, lead attorney for the city of Boerne, insists that Congress overstepped its authority in passing the law.