Bloomberg reports on yesterday's oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal. (See prior posting.) The case challenges the federal government's attempt to bar a New Mexico church from using a hallucinogenic tea in religious ceremonies.
This is Chief Justice Roberts first religious freedom case on the Court. Roberts questioned the government's argument that it must prohibit all use of hoasca to prevent diversion to non-religious uses. "Your approach is totally categorical.'' If a religious group used only one drop of the drug a year, "your position would still be the same", Roberts told government lawyer Edwin Kneedler during the one-hour argument.
The government argued that it has a compelling interest in "uniform enforcement'' of its drug laws. But Justice Antonin Scalia pointed to an exception that Congress has made for peyote in American Indian religious ceremonies. He said, "It's a demonstration you can make exceptions without the sky falling.'' Justice John Paul Stevens followed up by asking whether the exception for peyote indicated that "maybe [the government's interest is] not all that compelling.''
