Today's press release from the Beckett Fund on the Supreme Court's decision in Cutter v. Wilkinson does a good job of emphasizing the primary area in which the Supreme Court's approach differed from that of the Court of Appeals whose decision was reversed:
"The Court squarely rejected the core argument of the court below (and of RLUIPA's detractors) that religious accommodation laws that accommodate only religion violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, because they impermissibly favor the religious over the secular. As the Court explained, "Were the Court of Appeals' view the correct reading of our decisions, all manner of religious accommodations would fall."
"There's a strong argument to be made that the anti-accommodation reading of the Establishment Clause has been dead for a long time, but today's unanimous decision removes any lingering doubt,” said Anthony Picarello, President and General Counsel for the Becket Fund. "Cutter is a win for religious exercise in prison, but more importantly, it is a thumping victory for religion-only accommodations nationwide.”
UPDATE: There is also an excellent discussion of the Cutter case on today's SCOTUSblog.
