Caput santera Carmen Pal leads a Santería service in Hialeah, Florida, in 1987. Members of the Lukumi Babalu-Yeah church held their showtime service in the parking lot of the holding owned past the church'due south priest later the church was denied an occupancy permit due to their exercise of fauna sacrifice. The Supreme Courtroom afterward said the urban center ordinance prohibiting animal cede violated the First Amendment and targeted the religion. (AP Photo/Raul de Molina, used with permission from The Associated Press)

The Supreme Court addressed the constitutionality of animal sacrifice for religious purposes in Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993), voting unanimously to strike down a set of local ordinances prohibiting the practice considering they specifically targeted the Santería religion.

At the same time, the Courtroom connected to be divided over the appropriate test to decide the constitutionality of gratuitous exercise claims.

Santería religion uses animal sacrifice

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 merchandise and then to the United states of america post-obit the Cuban revolution.

Some Santeríans practise creature cede equally office of their religious ritual and belief. They cut the throats of chickens, goats, sheep, or turtles, which are often eaten afterwards as part of religious ceremonies involving weddings, births, and deaths.

City banned animal sacrifices in response to proposed Santerían church building

In 1987 a group of Santeríans made plans to open up a church building in Hialeah, Florida. In response, the urban center council passed a number of ordinances limiting animate being cede, which the urban center defined as "to unnecessarily kill, torment, or mutilate an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption."

The city argued that there were considerable health risks involved with feeding, housing, slaughtering, and disposing of animals in locations not properly zoned for these practices. They estimated that every bit many as 10,000 animals were slaughtered each twelvemonth in areas of the metropolis not and so zoned.

The urban center also cited a concern for animal cruelty as another reason for the regulations.

Court considered state interest v. free practice of religion

The Supreme Court voted nine-0 to strike down the ordinances with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivering the stance of the Court. Despite the unanimous vote, Justices Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, and Harry A. Blackmun each wrote dissever concurring opinions.

The justices spent most of their time debating the new gratis practice test articulated in Employment Division, Department of Homo Resources of Oregon 5. Smith (1990).

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

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

Courtroom concluded ordinance violated the Kickoff Amendment and targeted one religious group

Kennedy said that despite government claims to the contrary, the ordinances were conspicuously targeted at Santeríans and were therefore not neutral. He and then turned to the reasons given past the state and concluded that they were neither "compelling" nor "narrowly tailored."

Kennedy noted that hunters, restaurants, and people who fish were not subject to the regulations, thereby making the authorities's public wellness arguments a sham. He charged that the city's animal cruelty argument also was a smokescreen, as authorities did non seek to prohibit kosher slaughter although that method was similar to the way Santeríans sacrificed animals: "simultaneous and instantaneous severance of the carotid arteries with a precipitous instrument."

Animal cruelty laws could exist at issue in future

Justice Blackmun in his concurrence explained that ane day the Court would have to decide the issue of animal sacrifice for religious purposes nether a statute that met the neutrality test: "A harder instance would be presented if [a religious group] were requesting an exemption from a generally applicable anti-cruelty police. The result in the instance earlier the Court today, and the fact that every Fellow member of the Court concurs in that result, does non necessarily reverberate this Court's views of the strength of a State's interest in prohibiting cruelty to animals. ... The number of organizations that have filed ... briefs on behalf of this interest, however, demonstrates that it is not a business to exist treated lightly."

Lukumi Babalu was essentially an easy case considering the ordinances were written so poorly. The Court has not yet revisited the event of beast cede.

This commodity was originally published in 2009. Artemus Ward is professor of political scientific discipline kinesthesia associate at the college of law at Northern Illinois University. Ward received his Ph.D. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Diplomacy at Syracuse University and served every bit a staffer on the House Judiciary Committee. He is an award-winning author of several books of the U.S. Supreme Court and his research and commentary have been featured in such outlets as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Associated Printing, NBC Nightly News, Fox News, and C-Bridge.

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