I believe that “Santera” or “Santeros” is the correct term (there’s what three mission trips to Cuba will do for you, but there’s always the risk of faulty memory on my part).

Smith is bad law. Personally, I’m rooting for the priest. Unlike peyote consumption, animal sacrifice is a pretty central plank of Santeria. Banning animal sacrifice is the equivalent of banning Santeria, IMHO.

The priest said that such a prohibition violated RLUIPA and Texas Religious Freedom Act. But the Judge said that the city’s ordinance was not regulating the priest’s use of land but instead prohibiting a certain activity throughout the entire city.

And then today, ruling on the rest of the priest’s claims (which I can’t find the ruling on LexisNexis yet), the Judge said the city had a compelling interest to protect the public’s health.

I fear that if appealed this ruling would be upheld. In Hialeah, you’ll remember, that ordinance was not a law of “general or neutral applicability.” It was specifically created to prohibit folks from practicing Santeria. However, it was not narrowly tailored to advance that interest. Thus, the Supreme Court struck it down because it did not meet the compelling interest test (which applies only in situations where the law specifically targets a religion). Now here, we have a law that most likely has existed for years and wasn’t designed to target the Santerians, if that’s what they are called? Thus, it was a law of general or neutral applicability (as Smith laid out). Since we’re in federal court and the law was not designed to target a specific religion, it doesn’t have to be justified by a compelling governmental interest or be narrowly tailored to advance that interest.

Public health may indeed be a compelling interest but the Judge did not even need to demonstrate even existed. Smith really weakened the free exercise clause and minority faiths are the one’s that do most of the suffering. But if we were to apply the pre-Smith standard, I believe that public health is a compelling interest but that ordinance could have been more narrowly tailored to protect certain religious practices. Euless still could accommodate the Santeria religion if they wanted to. But once the Judge ruled against the priest’s RLUIPA claim, it all seemed downhill especially once Smith came into play.

In fact, for individuals and businesses who prefer to work in a free-market system rather than deal with environmental regulations and taxation, carbon trading is a system which is preferred. Many economists and environmentalists support a trading system, because it offers economic incentives to reduce emissions (and then sell extra rights to emit carbon).