Aaron Prentice
Project 2 Post
For my legal case, I talked about the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah (1993). The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye established a church in Hialeah, Florida, which saw the city pass four ordinances that prohibited any ritual killing of animals. This upset the church because this religion practices Santeria, which includes the tradition of animal sacrifice. The church felt that Hialeah was targeting its religion with these new laws so they took the city to court. The federal district court ruled in favor of the City of Hialeah because the court ruled that the new ordinances did not violate the first amendment if animal sacrifice was harmful to public health and welfare. Some of these defenses were that the animals pens were unsanitary and children who witnessed such sacrifices could become emotionally damaged The case was then taken to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which also ruled in favor of the city.
The case then made its way to the Supreme Court, which unanimously overturned the decision and ruled in favor of the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye. The Supreme Court ruled this way by applying the Smith Test, which says that governments can ban something for non-religious reasons, even if it affects religious practices, if there is compelling reasoning. The ordinances gave exemptions to kosher slaughters and secular killings, which meant that the only group the laws could affect were the Santeria. Therefore, the new laws were neither neutral between different religions, nor neutral between religious and non-religious matters, and the city did not have a compelling argument.