Head santera Carmen Pal leads a Santería service in Hialeah, Florida, in 1987. Members of the Lukumi Babalu-Yeah church building held their offset service in the parking lot of the holding owned by the church'due south priest afterward the church was denied an occupancy let due to their practise of animal sacrifice. The Supreme Courtroom later said the city ordinance prohibiting animate being sacrifice violated the Showtime Amendment and targeted the religion. (AP Photograph/Raul de Molina, used with permission from The Associated Press)

The Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of creature sacrifice for religious purposes in Church building of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Urban center of Hialeah (1993), voting unanimously to strike downwardly a set of local ordinances prohibiting the practice because they specifically targeted the Santería religion.

At the same fourth dimension, the Court continued to be divided over the advisable test to determine the constitutionality of free exercise claims.

Santería religion uses animal cede

Santería combines elements of Roman Catholicism and some African religious practices. It originated in West Africa, and adherents brought it to Cuba during the slave trade and then to the United States following the Cuban revolution.

Some Santeríans practice animate being cede every bit part of their religious ritual and belief. They cut the throats of chickens, goats, sheep, or turtles, which are often eaten after as part of religious ceremonies involving weddings, births, and deaths.

Metropolis banned animal sacrifices in response to proposed Santerían church

In 1987 a grouping of Santeríans made plans to open up a church in Hialeah, Florida. In response, the city council passed a number of ordinances limiting animal sacrifice, which the metropolis defined equally "to unnecessarily kill, torment, or mutilate an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony non for the primary purpose of nutrient consumption."

The metropolis argued that in that location were considerable wellness risks involved with feeding, housing, slaughtering, and disposing of animals in locations not properly zoned for these practices. They estimated that as many every bit x,000 animals were slaughtered each year in areas of the city not and then zoned.

The urban center also cited a business organisation for animal cruelty as some other reason for the regulations.

Court considered state interest v. costless exercise of religion

The Supreme Court voted 9-0 to strike downwards the ordinances with Justice Anthony G. Kennedy delivering the opinion of the Court. Despite the unanimous vote, Justices Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, and Harry A. Blackmun each wrote divide concurring opinions.

The justices spent nigh of their time debating the new free exercise examination articulated in Employment Segmentation, Department of Human Resources of Oregon five. Smith (1990).

In Smith, Scalia said that neutrality should be the standard used to adjudicate free exercise claims. The neutrality standard had replaced the longstanding gratis exercise exam from Sherbert v. Verner (1963) that government could only burden religious practice if a compelling land involvement existed and the government used the least-restrictive means of achieving that involvement. The neutrality standard was much easier for governments to meet than was the compelling interest test.

Kennedy adopted a hybrid approach, explaining that "a police force failing to satisfy [the requirements of neutrality and general applicability] must exist justified past a compelling governmental involvement and must exist narrowly tailored to advance that interest."

Court concluded ordinance violated the First Amendment and targeted one religious group

Kennedy said that despite government claims to the opposite, the ordinances were clearly targeted at Santeríans and were therefore not neutral. He so turned to the reasons given by the country and concluded that they were neither "compelling" nor "narrowly tailored."

Kennedy noted that hunters, restaurants, and people who fish were not field of study to the regulations, thereby making the government's public health arguments a sham. He charged that the city's beast cruelty argument besides was a smokescreen, equally authorities did not seek to prohibit kosher slaughter although that method was like to the way Santeríans sacrificed animals: "simultaneous and instantaneous severance of the carotid arteries with a abrupt instrument."

Animal cruelty laws could be at upshot in future

Justice Blackmun in his concurrence explained that one 24-hour interval the Courtroom would have to decide the effect of animal sacrifice for religious purposes under a statute that met the neutrality examination: "A harder case would exist presented if [a religious group] were requesting an exemption from a generally applicable anti-cruelty law. The effect in the instance before the Court today, and the fact that every Member of the Court concurs in that consequence, does not necessarily reverberate this Court'south views of the strength of a State'due south involvement in prohibiting cruelty to animals. ... The number of organizations that take filed ... briefs on behalf of this interest, still, demonstrates that it is not a concern to be treated lightly."

Lukumi Babalu was essentially an easy example because the ordinances were written and then poorly. The Court has not yet revisited the issue of creature cede.

This article was originally published in 2009. Artemus Ward is professor of political science faculty associate at the college of constabulary at Northern Illinois University. Ward received his Ph.D. from the Maxwell Schoolhouse of Citizenship & Public Affairs at Syracuse University and served every bit a staffer on the House Judiciary Commission. He is an award-winning author of several books of the U.S. Supreme Court and his research and commentary accept been featured in such outlets equally the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Associated Printing, NBC Nightly News, Fox News, and C-SPAN.

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