Can someone provide examples of how this affects Christians? What benefit would they be denied or sanction would they suffer based on beliefs or spiritual responses to something? The 9th Circuit test seems to me to have no implications for non-earth-based religions. But I assume this is really just my lack of imagination. What regulation would (a) substantially affect a belief and spiritual experience) of a Christian, but (b) not substantially effect an exercise of that belief in the way used by the 9th Circuit (i.e., prevent performance under some threat of sanction or deny a benefit because of performance of the religious exercise)? Belief in the trinity or sacraments or icons or miracles don't seem to qualify.
So even taking a broad view, I don't see anything. Consider abortion -- a doctor says he believes it to be against his religion. The government (in an alternate universe) says he has to perform the abortions or lose his medicare payments for everything he does. This would be burdening the action -- requiring an action under threat of sanction. It would meet the 9th Circuit burden test. Zoning -- well, that is local, isn't it. And this case was about how the federal government uses its own land -- not regulating someone else's. Please help me out here. I just suffer from a lack of imagination on this I guess. While my emotional side sides with the dissent -- and I think we should see such harms as real and protected, I don't see how this decision affects anyone other than sacred space types. Steve -- Prof. Steven Jamar Howard University School of Law Associate Director, Institute of Intellectual Property and Social Justice (IIPSJ) Inc.
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
