Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 28, 1993                   TAG: 9311290166
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cody Lowe
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A BIT OF LEGISLATION FOR WHICH TO GIVE THANKS

Despite that relative inattention, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act signed by President Clinton on Nov. 16 is one of the most important pieces of legislation related to the freedom of religion ever adopted by Congress. It is one thing we surely should be thankful for this season.

In 1990, the U.S. Supreme Court voided years of precedent in the protection of religious freedom in a decision called Employment Division vs. Smith.

You may remember the case. A drug-counseling program employee was fired after a drug test revealed that he had used the hallucinogen peyote. He then was denied unemployment compensation because he was fired because of a violation of the law.

Nobody disputed the fact that he used the peyote as part of an ancient American Indian religious ritual. He appealed the decision denying him unemployment benefits on First Amendment grounds.

Though about half the states have exemptions to anti-drug laws for those engaged in religious practices, Oregon - where the suit was filed - does not. The state contended it shouldn't have to pay unemployment compensation to someone fired for doing something illegal - even if the exercise of religion was involved.

For 30 years the courts had affirmed that government cannot enforce laws that infringe on a person's religious freedom unless a ``compelling interest'' to do so could be demonstrated.

In the 6-3 Smith decision, the court dramatically and unexpectedly shifted its position. Justice Antonin Scalia said the ``compelling interest'' test for allowing exemptions to some laws in the interest of the free exercise of religion was ``a luxury we can longer afford.''

From now on, the Smith decision said, citizens would have to show that a law was aimed specifically at inhibiting their exercise of religion before that law could be circumvented.

An unusual, maybe unprecedented, coalition of religious groups - many of which hardly speak to each other - banned together to get Congress to enact a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that essentially restores the ``compelling interest'' requirement. Government, it says, must conduct its business with the least possible restrictions on religious liberty.

The coalition sensed from the beginning that the Smith decision would be disastrous for religious liberty. It feared the decision's provisions could be extended to prohibit the ritual slaughter of animals to comply with kosher requirements, that children could be denied sacramental wine, that religious laws on the observance of the Sabbath could be negated.

In the three years since the Smith decision, the coalition said, more than 60 cases have been decided against religious groups. Among other things, churches have been zoned out of even commercial districts, ``unnecessary'' autopsies have been performed in violation of families' religious beliefs, and a Catholic hospital lost its accreditation because it refused to perform abortions.

As President Clinton pointed out when he signed the bill, Congress is rightly hesitant to use legislation to reverse a decision of the Supreme Court. This was a time for such action, however.

It was not a whim or accident that put the freedoms of religion, speech and the press in the first article of the Bill of Rights. They are our ``first freedoms.''

Now - unless they rule the law is unconstitutional - the courts will be forced to abide by the provisions of the new act, which restores religious freedom to its appropriately high pedestal.

This Thanksgiving season, having a law that says our religious freedom is a luxury we can afford is a good reason to thank God.

Clinton added some apparently extemporaneous remarks to his prepared speech at the signing of the bill - good words that say a lot about the proper relationship between religion and government:

``It is high time we had an open and honest reaffirmation of the role of American citizens of faith - not so that we can agree, but so that we can argue and discourse and seek the truth and seek to heal this troubled land.

``There is a great debate now ... about the extent to which people of faith can seek to do God's will as political actors. I would like to come down on the side of encouraging everybody to act on what they believe is the right thing to do.

``There are many people who strenuously disagree with me on what they believe are the strongest grounds of their faith. I encourage them to speak out.

``We are a people of faith. We have been so secure in that faith that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people who profess no faith. And good for us for doing so. That is what the First Amendment is all about.

``But let us never believe that the freedom of religion imposes on any of us some responsibility to run from our convictions. Let us instead respect one another's faiths, fight to the death to preserve the right of every American to practice whatever convictions he or she has, but bring our values back to the table of American discourse to heal our troubled land.''