Dec 3, 2004
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit yesterday ruled that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) is constitutional.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty--an interfaith, nonpartisan, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions--was the attorney of record for Ralph Benning, an inmate at the Georgia State Prison in Hancock. Correctional officials refused to provide Benning, who practices the Jewish faith, with kosher food or allow him to wear a yarmulke. Benning sued the State of Georgia and the Georgia Department of Corrections under RLUIPA, a 2000 law that requires prisons receiving federal funds to reasonably accommodate prisoners' religious exercise.
“Prisoners should not be forced to check their religion, along with their civilian clothing, at the jailhouse doorstep,” said Jared N. Leland, Media and Legal Counsel for The Becket Fund. “In fact, religion is often the root of rehabilitation and so prisoners should and must be free to practice.”
“Because Congress properly exercised its spending power by unambiguously conditioning the use of federal funds for state prisons on the related accommodation of the religious exercise of prisoners and that accommodation does not endorse a religious viewpoint, we conclude that this section of RLUIPA was validly enacted under the Spending Clause and does not violate either the Establishment Clause or the Tenth Amendment,” Circuit Judge Pryor wrote in the decision. “Both the protection of the religious exercise of prisoners and their rehabilitation are rational goals of Congress, and those goals are related to the use of federal funds for state prisons.”
The court accepted The Becket Fund’s argument that RLUIPA is a permissible accommodation of religious exercise and that upholding RLUIPA better secures other government accommodations of religious exercise for all people, not just prisoners. “A sweeping invalidation of all accommodations of religion is wholly inconsistent with the history, traditions, and laws of our nation,” Judge Pryor wrote. As The Becket Fund has noted, accommodations around the country range from the U.S. military's allowing Jews in the armed forces to wear yarmulkes, to many states’ exemption of minors from underage drinking laws for religious purposes.
“The Court’s decision is a victory for RLUIPA and, more importantly, is a strong endorsement of the principle that there is no constitutional barrier to laws that accommodate and lift burdens on religious exercise,” said Derek Gaubatz, Senior Legal Counsel of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “God willing this is a preview of how the Supreme Court will decide this same issue this term.”
In Cutter v. Wilkinson, the Supreme Court will determine whether the prisoner provisions of the law violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.