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I. INTRODUCTION In March 2006, federal agents raided a Native American powwow in Texas, confronted religious dancers, and confiscated 42 sacred eagle feathers. Pastor Robert Soto, a leader of the [...]

I do not use the term "absurd" in this title lightly. Judge Marsha Berzon used it in a dissenting opinion to describe the impractical result that comes from repeating the [...]

34TH ANNUAL INDIAN LAW SYMPOSIUM RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW OF AMERICAN INDIANS APRIL 21, 2022 I would like to speak today about protection for Indian sacred sites. I am both [...]

For several decades the peyotists within the Native American Church of North America have won numerous legal battles that have helped to ensure the continued existence of their religion. Beginning in 1960 with the landmark decision Arizona v. Attakai, a consistent set of state court decisions have supported the church's claim that the use of peyote is a reasonable and legitimate aspect of religion within the church. In 1964, for example, in People v. Woody, et al., the California Supreme Court overturned the drug conviction of church members, saying the state had no "compelling interest" to justify a ban on ceremonial peyote use. The Woody court concluded that a ban would remove the "theological heart of Peyotism" and that the government's need to fight drug abuse could not be used to deny religious freedom automatically to members of the Native American Church.Since the Woody decision, the United States Congress has taken legislative steps to clarify and enhance Indian religious freedoms by the passage of the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978.

The Court in Lyng denied the Free Exercise claim in part because it could not see a stopping place. We uphold the RFRA claim in this case in part because [...]

On June 26, 2002, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that the words 'under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional, because they violate the [...]

Titles I and V of the 1993 draft Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act should be passed by Congress. The draft law is an answer to the deficiencies of the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act, concerning access to land for religious services. Sacred Indian sites on federal lands are in jeopardy of destructive development, and there is a crisis with Indians refused access to their religious sites. This draft act would provide a mandate to land managers to consider the Indians' needs.

MOST AMERICANS FEEL SECURE THAT THEIR FREEDOM TO WORSHIP IN THEIR particular religious faith is a well protected right. After all, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: 'Congress [...]

Few will argue that freedom of religion is one of America's founding principles. Many if not most of our early settlers fled European countries to escape religious persecution and were […]