Judge: White man can't use peyote in religious ceremony
The Ten Commandments, crosses and crucifixes, Bibles, and other Christian objects have been at the center of many a religious-liberty case. But if there's one item that has shaped America's religious liberty law in the last decade or so, it's peyote. The hallucinogenic cactus was at the center of Employment Division v. Smith, where a Native American was fired from his job and denied unemployment benefits because he'd chewed it as part of a religious ceremony. The Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that the firing did not infringe on Smith's religious freedom. In response, religious liberty advocates convinced Congress to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which was subsequently ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Now those two Supreme Court cases are the backbone of current religious freedom law in the U.S.—which Christianity Today columnist Charles Colson and others have argued is a very, very bad thing.
Now another peyote case may once again chip away religious liberty in the country. A Utah district court judge ruled that even though federal law allows Native Americans to use peyote in religious ceremonies (the law was passed after the Supreme Court's anti-RFRA decision), self-styled medicine man Nicholas Stark isn't allowed to do so because he has no proof that he's of American Indian descent. "Clearly, there is a protection for the use of peyote for Native Americans, but Mr. Stark does not come under that protection," Judge Roger Dutson wrote in his decision. Even more brazenly, Deputy Weber County Attorney Richard Parmley had argued in court that the federal law hadn't been intended to protect religious freedom at all, but merely to "preserve the unique cultural history of the Native American people."
"This is not just to get around Utah's Uniform Drug Code," Stark's attorney says. His client "professes those beliefs, he practices them." And it's not fair to discriminate against his beliefs just because he does not "bear a particular DNA in [his] blood." Expect an appeal.
The divide on McVeigh | Churches, some followers disagree on killing a killer (The Dallas Morning News)
Saving McVeigh | Oklahoma City bomber deserves forgiveness and will be welcomed to heaven by victims, priest says (San Francisco Chronicle)
Not forgetting, but forgiving | Tim McVeigh killed his daughter. Now Bud Welch has lost his anger, too. (The Washington Post)
Fellow inmate counsels McVeigh | The devoutly Roman Catholic David Hammer, a fellow death row inmate, may be the last voice urging Timothy McVeigh to seek spiritual redemption. (Associated Press)
American nun shot dead in Guatemala | Sister Barbara Ann Ford of the Bronx-based Sisters of Charity was shot in the head Saturday in Guatemala City in what local police said yesterday was an attempted carjacking. (New York Daily News)
Subscribe to Christianity Today and get 3 free trial issues. No credit card required.
Please allow 4-6 weeks for delivery. Offer valid in U.S. only.
If you decide you want to keep Christianity Today coming, honor your invoice for just $19.95 and receive nine more issues, a full year in all. If not, simply write "cancel" across the invoice and return it. The three trial issues are yours to keep, regardless.
RSS Feeds
Audio
Twitter
1 of 4
share this page
E-mail
Print
Post
Subscribe to Christianity Today magazine today!
