Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Ritual sacrifice poses hazards, high court told Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 17:01:12 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \HD Ritual sacrifice poses hazards, high court told \BY Nancy E. Roman \CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES An Afro-Cuban religion's ritual animal slaughter is cruel and unsanitary, Richard Garrett told Supreme Court justices yesterday as he urged the court to uphold a city law forbidding the practice. "The human health hazards are substantial," he said, mentioning a slaughtered goat found on Miami Beach. "The animal parts or blood are harborages for rats, fleas and flies that transmit disease." Representing the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Douglas Laycock said the Hialeah, Fla., laws barring animal sacrifice violate the Constitution's guarantee of the free exercise of religion. "This case is about open discrimination against a minority religion," he said, noting that the city laws outlawing animal sacrifice do not forbid hunting, slaughterhouses or the humane killing of pets. The case began in 1987 when Hialeah passed four ordinances to restrict animal killing. The laws were passed just after the Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye leased an abandoned car lot in the city with the intention of opening a Santeria church. Santeria, also known as Yoba or Yoruba, originated in northern Africa and spread to Cuba during the slave trade of the early 1800s. When Cuba went communist in 1959 and banned all religions, Cuban exiles brought the faith to the United States. The religion's main tenets include a moral creed similar to the Ten Commandments, the worship of nature and ancestors, and the ritual sacrifice of chickens, goats, pigs, ducks, turtles and other animals to symbolize oneness with God, said Ernesto Pichardo, priest and president of the 400-member church in Hialeah. The church sued Hialeah in federal court, charging that the laws barring animal sacrifice unconstitutionally interfere with the free exercise of religion. A district judge upheld the city's laws in 1989, saying that although Hialeah officials enacted the laws specifically to prevent church members from slaughtering animals, they did not discriminate unlawfully in doing so. He said the laws regulate conduct but do not interfere with beliefs. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling. The Circuit Court ruling will be reviewed in light of Employment Division of Oregon vs. Smith, a widely publicized 1990 Supreme Court ruling that Indians could not use the illegal drug peyote in their religious rites. The high court said religious beliefs do not exempt people from "neutral and generally applicable" laws. The Smith decision has been decried by religious groups who see it as a dangerous narrowing of the First Amendment's "free exercise" clause. Attorneys for Jewish, Baptist, Catholic, Mormon, Lutheran, evangelical, Mennonite and Seventh-day Adventist groups used the Hialeah case as an opportunity to tell justices that the anti-discrimination principle established in Smith is insufficient to shield religions from the intolerance of majorities. They have urged justices to modify their Smith ruling. But if the justices agree with Mr. Laycock's assertions that the laws were enacted to drive out an unpopular religion, they may find the laws unconstitutional without revising their Smith opinion. Justices grilled both lawyers. After Mr. Laycock said, "When you suppress a central ritual, you suppress the religion," Justice Antonin Scalia shot back: "The Thugs were a religious group, and their central ritual was killing other people. Certainly you can outlaw that." But Justice Scalia also played the other side. "You make exception [to the anti-killing ordinances] for slaughterhouses," he told Mr. Garrett. "But you don't even allow animal sacrifice to be done in a temple or a church." This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM