The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down as unconstitutional a 1993 federal law aimed at curbing governmental interference in religious practice is a devastating blow to Jews and other religious communities.
The justices, in a 6-3 decision, said Congress usurped power from state and local governments — and from the Supreme Court itself — when it enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, commonly known as RFRA.
The move wipes out one of the Jewish community’s crowning legislative achievements.
Jewish organizations across the political and religious spectrum had been instrumental in pushing the legislation through Congress, and they had hailed its enactment as one of the most important developments for religious liberty this century.
Still, word of Wednesday’s decision hit Jewish leaders — indeed, religious leaders and civil rights advocates everywhere — with unusually blunt force.
“It’s sort of like one of your children getting killed,” said Marc Stern, co- director of the American Jewish Congress’ legal department.
“There is now no more federal protection for religious practice,” he added. “That hasn’t been the case in two generations.”
Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, called the decision one of the “worst mistakes this court has ever made.”
The decision comes two days after the high court, in another closely watched church-state case, ruled that public school systems can send teachers into parochial schools to offer remedial instruction.
But unlike the decision in Agostini vs. Felton, which may indicate greater acceptance among the justices for other forms of federal aid to religious schools, the RFRA ruling provides no further insight into the court’s attitude toward church-state issues, legal analysts said.
The decision, instead, was limited to questions surrounding the nature of federalism and the separation of powers.
“We take comfort in the fact that, in light of the decision in the Agostini case, the court does appreciate the role of religion in American society and that it apparently viewed” the RFRA case “as one strictly confined to the separation of powers in our federal system,” said Nathan Diament, director of the Orthodox Union’s Institute for Public Affairs.
The RFRA decision centered on the case Boerne vs. Flores, which involved a dispute between a small Texas town and the local Roman Catholic Church.
The church had invoked RFRA after city officials denied an application for the church to expand into the city’s historic district.
The church argued that the city’s refusal to issue a building permit was an example of governmental action banned by the law.
City officials responded by launching a constitutional attack on RFRA.
Under the 1993 law, passed nearly unanimously in Congress and signed into law with strong support from President Clinton, federal, state and local governments were required to show a “compelling” interest before interfering with the practice of religion. Even then, the law requires governments to adopt the least restrictive means possible.
Congress enacted the law in response to a 1990 Supreme Court ruling which said laws that otherwise are neutral toward religion can be valid even if they may infringe on some people’s religious beliefs.
In its ruling this week, the high court decided that Congress had overstepped its legislative authority and usurped judicial authority.
Writing for the court majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, “Our national experience teaches that the Constitution is preserved best when each part of the government respects both the Constitution and the proper actions and determinations of other branches.”
“RFRA,” he added, “contradicts vital principles necessary to maintain separation of powers and the federal balance.”
Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justices John Paul Stevens, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia.
Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter and Stephen Breyer dissented.
O’Connor and Breyer, for their part, called for reconsidering the court’s 1990 ruling.
Without the protections afforded under RFRA, it will be more difficult to claim that actions taken by government improperly restrict religious freedom, experts say.
“Neutral laws regarding the drinking age and medical procedures could be enforced against Christian Communion and Jewish circumcision rituals,” the Anti-Defamation League noted in a statement.
It will also be harder to make the case for excusing Jewish students from school Christmas productions, opposing a law prohibiting state employees from wearing hats or head coverings in the workplace, or fighting a city that attempts to use its zoning power to shut down a church’s homeless feeding program.
“Between 1990 and 1993, we lost some 60 religious freedom cases that we would have had a good chance of winning under RFRA,” Saperstein said.
In the wake of RFRA’s invalidation, Jewish legal experts seemed at a loss in trying to figure out where to go from here.
“The fact that it was a 6-3 vote, so broadly cast, would lead me to believe that it is not going to be easy to find a federal legislative fix,” Stern said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
