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In 1993, a broad-based coalition of national leaders helped the ReligiousFreedom Restoration Act (RFRA)—which limited governmentregulation of religious expression—become law.

But in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's June 25 ruling overturning rfra,the formerly close-knit coalition shows signs of fraying, as members bickerover what they should do now. Some say the emphasis should be on new federallegislation, while others support local and state laws, and still otherslobby for a constitutional amendment. "My concern right now is whether thecoalition can stay together," says Steven McFarland, director of the ChristianLegal Society's Center for Law and Religious Freedom.

About the only point anyone agrees on is that the high court chipped awayat believers' constitutionally guaranteed rights when it ruled 6 to 3 infavor of Boerne, Texas. The city had used local historic preservation lawsto prohibit Saint Peter the Apostle Church from renovating its 74-year-oldbuilding for its growing Catholic congregation(CT, April 28, 1997, p. 76).

"The provisions of the federal statute here invoked are beyond congressionalauthority," wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. "It is this court's precedent,not RFRA, which must control."

RAMPANT REBUKES: Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Scientologists,and Americans United for Separation of Church and State quickly condemnedthe Court's decision, which could make it harder for parents to exempt theirchildren from offensive classes or for prisoners to participate in Biblestudies.

"The religious liberty of every American is in peril," says Baptist JointCommittee on Public Affairs general counsel J. Brent Walker.

"Every religious person in the United States will be hurt by this decision,[which] will likely be remembered as the 'Dred Scott' ofchurch-state law," says National Council of Churches special counsel OliverThomas.

"The Court's decision guts the First Amendment," says Prison Fellowship founderCharles Colson.

"The Supreme Court has … bulldozed the last barrier of protection forreligious Americans," asserts Rita Woltz, legal coordinator for the RutherfordInstitute, which has defended numerous RFRA claims."We are now on the verge of true religious apartheid in this country."

Others expressed surprise that conservative Justices Antonin Scalia and ClarenceThomas had sided with the majority, but they shied away from such dramaticstatements.

"I am disappointed and displeased by this decision, but I am not alarmist,"says University of Missouri-Columbia law professor Carl Esbeck, who arguedin favor of RFRA before the Court in February. "Americansstill have a Constitution that prohibits discrimination on the basis ofreligion."

FREE EXERCISE CLAUSE: But many RFRA supportersbelieve the First Amendment's free exercise clause was intended to give religiouspeople and institutions more than freedom from discrimination(CT, Oct. 7, 1996, p. 82). They say religiousliberties are as imperiled by the RFRA ruling as theywere by the Court's 1990 decision in Employment Division v.Smith. That decision declared that Oregon's drug-control lawstook precedence over claims by members of the Native American Church thattheir faith required the sacramental use of peyote, which contains an illegalhallucinogen, thereby doing away with the requirement that government showa "compelling interest" when it infringed on religious behavior.

"People had felt that the free exercise clause was in the Constitution fora reason," says Woltz of the Rutherford Institute. "If it doesn't providefor any exclusions, then what's it doing there?"

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August 11 1997, Vol. 41, No. 9