Peyote Way Church of God, Inc. v. Thornburgh | |
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Court | United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit |
Full case name | Peyote Way Church of God, Inc. v. Thornburgh |
Decided | February 6 1991 |
Citation(s) | 922 F.2d 1210 |
Holding | |
Peyote Way's constitutional claims were dismissed. | |
Court membership | |
Judge(s) sitting | Charles Clark, Thomas Morrow Reavley, Carolyn Dineen King |
Case opinions | |
Majority | Reavley, joined by King |
Dissent | Clark |
Laws applied | |
Commerce Clause, Due Process Clause, Establishment Clause, Equal Protection Clause, Free Exercise Clause, Controlled Substances Act |
Peyote Way Church of God, Inc. v. Thornburgh was a court case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in which the Peyote Way Church of God challenged an exemption in the Controlled Substances Act that permitted members of the Native American Church to use peyote in religious ceremonies while not giving the same exemption to members of other churches. The court ruled that the exemption was primarily a political rather than a religious one and that all of Peyote Way's claims were without merit.
The psychedelic drug peyote has been traditionally used by Native Americans. There have been various peyote-based belief systems, but one prominent one is that of the Native American Church, founded in 1918. [1]
The Peyote Way Church of God was formed in 1977 by Immanuel Trujillo, a former member of the Native American Church who had left the group in 1966 because he objected to the church's requirement of being a Native American to be a member. [2]
Peyote was first made illegal in the United States by the Drug Abuse Control Act Amendments of 1965 but a regulation was issued exempting religious use by the NAC. That exemption continued after the Controlled Substances Act passed in 1970 but continued to apply only to that church. [3] Peyote Way sued in 1980, arguing that the exemption applying to the NAC but not them violated various constitutional rights of the church. [4] The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled against them, and they appealed. [5]
The majority opinion started by considering Peyote Way's claim under the Free Exercise Clause, which it considered precluded because of the Supreme Court's opinion in Employment Division v. Smith as the laws in question were generally applicable. It then looked at the claims of inequality with the Native American Church's peyote exemption. The court found that because the NAC limited membership only to those of Native American ancestry the exemption was for a political group and it was "rationally related to the legitimate governmental objective of preserving Native American culture". Hence there was no equal protection problem in only giving the exemption to the NAC. The same justification applied to Peyote Way's argument under the Establishment Clause. Finally the court cited Bowers v. Hardwick in refusing to recognize any new privacy right for Peyote Way to practice their religion.
The dissent argued that because the exemption was only for the Native American Church it must necessarily be a religious exemption rather than a political one, but would also have denied Peyote Way's claim for relief because the unconstitutionality of the NAC exemption would not give any rights to them. [5]
The decision was criticized in the American Indian Law Review for relying on the NAC's official membership requirements instead of investigating if non-Native individuals were indeed using peyote under the church's umbrella. [6] In 1994 Congress amended the American Indian Religious Freedom Act to legalize peyote use by all members of Indian tribes, making it clear that the granted exemption was to a political group rather than a religious one. [7]
The Peyote Way Church of God still exists and offers "spirit walks" to the public in order for them to take peyote. [8] The church no longer faces legal action. Trujillo died in 2010. [9]
Entheogens are psychoactive substances that induce alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, or behavior for the purposes of engendering spiritual development or otherwise in sacred contexts. Anthropological study has established that entheogens are used for religious, magical, shamanic, or spiritual purposes in many parts of the world. Entheogens have traditionally been used to supplement many diverse practices geared towards achieving transcendence, including divination, meditation, yoga, sensory deprivation, asceticism, prayer, trance, rituals, chanting, imitation of sounds, hymns like peyote songs, drumming, and ecstatic dance. The psychedelic experience is often compared to non-ordinary forms of consciousness such as those experienced in meditation, near-death experiences, and mystical experiences. Ego dissolution is often described as a key feature of the psychedelic experience.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb through 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-4, is a 1993 United States federal law that "ensures that interests in religious freedom are protected." The bill was introduced by Congressman Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 11, 1993. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate by Ted Kennedy (D-MA) the same day. A unanimous U.S. House and a nearly unanimous U.S. Senate—three senators voted against passage—passed the bill, and President Bill Clinton signed it into law.
Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), is a United States Supreme Court case that held that the state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for violating a state prohibition on the use of peyote even though the use of the drug was part of a religious ritual. Although states have the power to accommodate otherwise illegal acts performed in pursuit of religious beliefs, they are not required to do so.
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Native American religions are the spiritual practices of the Native Americans in the United States. Ceremonial ways can vary widely and are based on the differing histories and beliefs of individual nations, tribes and bands. Early European explorers describe individual Native American tribes and even small bands as each having their own religious practices. Theology may be monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, animistic, shamanistic, pantheistic or any combination thereof, among others. Traditional beliefs are usually passed down in the forms of oral histories, stories, allegories, and principles.
The Native American Church (NAC), also known as Peyotism and Peyote Religion, is a Native American religion that teaches a combination of traditional Native American beliefs and Christianity, with sacramental use of the entheogen peyote. The religion originated in the Oklahoma Territory (1890–1907) in the late nineteenth century, after peyote was introduced to the southern Great Plains from Mexico. Today it is the most widespread indigenous religion among Native Americans in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, with an estimated 250,000 adherents as of the late twentieth century.
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