Toto

MAYWEATHERS v. NEWLAND

The court held that the statute, which requires state prison officials to accomodate prisoners' religious practices if that can be reasonably done, passes the Lemon test.

Specifically, the statute prescribes that “[n]o government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise” of prisoners unless the government can demonstrate that the burden both serves a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of advancing that interest. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(a) (2000).

The court held that the "secular purpose" of the law was to avoid burdening religious rights, that the law neither advances nor inhibits religion, since it does not call for subsidies, and there is no entanglement of state and religion.

I don't find the reasoning very persuasive. I wonder if any of the parties seriously argued against RUILPA.

himynameisPwn

Err, I'd think it would be out of the realm of separation and into the realm of freedom of religion. The state isn't promoting religion but allowing its practice upon request of people that are stuck within its system.

Toto

The issue here is a law that gives religious practices favoritism.

Prisons generally have rules against beards for security reasons. If a prisoner wants to wear a beard for aesthetic reasons, he's out of luck. But if he converts to a religion that requires men to wear beards, voila! he has trumped the rule.

Rusting Car Bumper

I don't see that as the case. It simply affirms what is already implied by the first amendment.

Further, the prison *could* trump the prisoner's right to have a beard *if* "the government can demonstrate that the burden both serves a compelling government interest" and "is the least restrictive means of advancing that interest."

DC

Stephen Maturin

Actually, RLUIPA goes well beyond what's implied by the First Amendment. Under current Free Exercise Clause jurisprudence, a neutral law of general applicability that happens to burden religious practices is perfectly okay. Much of the debate surrounding RLUIPA centers on whether Congress improperly tried to "overrule" the Supreme Court on an issue of constitutional interpretation. The prison officials in Mayweathers framed this as a separation-of-powers argument that, IMO, the Ninth Circuit properly rejected as follows:

As I see it, the real problem with RLUIPA, as with its predecessor, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, is that it violates the Establishment Clause by creating a legal "preference for religion, as opposed to irreligion" and thereby providing "a legal weapon that no atheist or agnostic can obtain." City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997) (Stevens, J., concurring). I rather doubt that we'll ever see a majority of the Supreme Court agreeing with this position, though.

Although theoretically possible, that's not at all likely to happen in practice. The "compelling government interest/least restrictive means" language in the statute is basically the "strict scrutiny" test that the Supreme Court applies in certain classes of First Amendment, Due Process and Equal Protection cases. The list of statutes, regulations, etc. that have held up under that level of scrutiny is a mighty short one.