Quotes About RFRA

This is why the RFRA and laws like it are so dangerous—they allow people to break laws if they say they think their god (which always agrees with them) wants them to.

Congress responded promptly by passing a statute, provocatively titled the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The new law provided that a statute that appeared neutral on its face could not be applied in a way that placed a burden on the practice of religion unless the government could show that the burden served a "compelling interest.

Broad as the power of Congress is under the Enforcement Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, RFRA contradicts vital principles necessary to maintain separation of powers and the federal balance." The Rehnquist Court majority used similar interpretations of Section 5 and of the Commerce Clause to overturn other statutes, including the Violence Against Women Act, which permitted women who were victims of gender-motivated violence to sue their attackers in federal court (United States v.

Third, the Court has never applied the "least restrictive means" test in a First Amendment free exercise case. RFRA and its progeny do not restore anything, but rather concoct a new, extreme standard (the burden of showing a compelling interest and the least restrictive means) against the government when it defends neutral, generally applicable laws.

Under the RFRA of 1993, a religious believer could ignore every law in the country unless it served a "compelling interest," which is a state interest of surpassing importance, and the law served that end in the "least restrictive" way for this one religious believer. In layman's terms, believers could build a moat around their particular religious beliefs that would deny access to the law.

In a decision I dreaded but expected, five Catholic, male Justices held that RFRA trumped any rights the women might have and ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby.

RFRA introduced an era of extreme religious liberty in the United States that would have been rejected by the Framers, who understood the difference between ordered liberty and licentiousness. We need to return to that distinction, or risk the end of our largely peaceful religiously diverse country.