ct has provided for the exception.

Vbuddddddddbzbkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkhye

This court has to balance between the law and religious practices.
This is a sensitive matter better dealt by the representatives of the
people in the appropriate forums. We cannot shut our eyes to
centuries-old traditions. We cannot start examining the relevance of
animal sacrifice in each religion if a PIL is filed under Article 32."

Attempting to find a way out, Ramachandran said the SC had

entertained a petition challenging a Himachal Pradesh High Court
judgment on October 3 last year banning animal sacrifice for
religious purposes. "Please issue notice on this petition and let this
be heard along with the pending appeal," he pleaded. But the SC
refused to accede to his request.

However, it allowed the petitioner to withdraw the PIL and move an

application seeking to be a party in the pending appeal. A rough
private estimate put the number of animals sacrificed every year
during religious occasions at nearly 5 lakh.
SC to examine PIL seeking ban on animal sacrifice during religious festivals
By
Samanwaya Rautray
 No ban on animal sacrifice for religious
purposes
By V Nilesh | Express News Service | Published: 13th August 2017
08:14 AM |
Last Updated: 13th August 2017 08:32 AM | A+A A- |

HYDERABAD: The Supreme Court on Friday has stayed the clause

of prohibiting sacrifice of cattle for religious purposes under the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets)
Rules, 2017.
With this ruling, during Bakrid, which is observed in the first week of
September, cattle can be sacrificed without any legal ramifications.
However, cattle does not include cow as its slaughter is illegal in
most states including Telangana.

Related Article
AIJQAC to form gau rakshak committee
The SC ruling comes after a few animal rights activists and
organisations approached the apex court with an intervening petition
to recall its earlier order of July 11, extending stay on the 2017
notification ordered by Madurai bench of Madras High Court to the
entire country.
The animal rights activists had impleaded in the writ petition filed by
Hyderabad-based All India Jamiatul Quresh Action Committee
(AIJQAC) in the SC. AIJQAC had challenged the 2017 notification
as unconstitutional, following which the apex court passed its
judgment on July 11.
Md Abdul Faheem Qureshi, advocate and president of AIJQAC, said
that during hearing of the petition filed by the animal rights activists,
he raised the question whether the stay ordered by Madras High
Court included rule 22 (e) (iii) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
(Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 as well.
The rule 22 (e) (iii) states that the buyer of cattle shall not sacrifice
the animal for any religious purpose. It was observed that the
judgment of Madras High Court was not explicit regarding
prohibition of this rule.
Qureshi said that the SC clarified that the stay is applicable on rule
22 (e) (iii) as well.
The court also raised a point that when the parent Act, The
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 allows animal sacrifice
for religious purpose, then how can the 2017 notification prohibit it,
Qureshi said.
Section 28 of the 1960 Act states Nothing contained in this Act
shall render it an offence to kill any animal in a manner required by
the religion of any community.
It may be recalled that in 2015 as well the SC had rejected a plea
seeking ban on animal sacrifice as part of religion.

India court bans 'barbaric' animal sacrifices

Himachal Pradesh high court bans tradition of sacrificing
animals for religious reasons
A Hindu devotee slaughters a buffalo as an offering to the Hindu goddess
Gadhimai Photo: AFP/Getty

By AFP
1:25PM BST 02 Sep 2014

Comment
A court in remote northern India has banned a long tradition of sacrificing
animals for religious reasons, deeming the practice cruel and "barbaric".
The High Court in Himachal Pradesh has asked police and other officials to
enforce its ban on the slaughter of mainly goats in Hindu temples throughout
the state.
"No person will sacrifice any animal in any place of worship. It includes
adjoining lands and buildings," the two-judge bench of the court ruled late on
Monday.
"A startling revelation has been made ... thousands of animals are sacrificed
every year in the name of worship," the court said.
"Sacrifice causes immense pain and suffering to innocent animals. They
cannot be permitted to be sacrificed to appease a god or deity in a barbaric
manner," it said.
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The court also questioned the reasons for animal sacrifices, saying such
rituals "must change in the modern era".
The court was ruling on a petition brought by animal rights activists who
applauded the move on Tuesday as long overdue.
"We welcome this ban on animal sacrifice as it will end centuries of cruelty to
animals in the name of religion," local activist Rajeshwar Negi told AFP.
But state representative Maheshwar Singh defended the practice, adding that
"this judgment is against the age-old beliefs and customs of many people".
Goats and sometimes sheep are often sacrificed at the start of winter in
temples across Himachal Pradesh with the aim of pleasing Hindu deities.
Animals are symbolically offered to the deity and later taken home by villagers
and their guests for eating during the Himalayan state's bitterly cold winter.
Some of the sacrifices at festivals including those of "shaand" and "bhunda"
involve large numbers of animals killed using a knife at the entrance of the
temples.

THE SUPREME COURT: Animal

Sacrifice; Court, Citing Religious
Freedom, Voids a Ban on Animal
Sacrifices
By LINDA GREENHOUSE,
Published: June 12, 1993

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 PRINT
REPRINTS

WASHINGTON, June 11 The Supreme Court ruled today that a
Florida city's ban on ritual animal sacrifice violated the religious freedom
of the followers of an Afro-Cuban religion in which the sacrifice of
animals plays a central role.

All nine Justices agreed that the prohibition, enacted in 1987 by the City
of Hialeah, violated the First Amendment's guarantee of the free exercise
of religion. "The principle that government may not enact laws that
suppress religious belief or practice is so well understood that few
violations are recorded in our opinions," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy
wrote for the Court. [ Excerpts, page 9. ]

But the Justices were divided in their approach to the case, continuing a
three-year-old debate within the Court on how to analyze laws that make
religious observances burdensome or impossible.

Justice Kennedy's majority opinion found the series of ordinances

enacted by the Hialeah City Council to be constitutionally flawed because
their goal was to suppress the Santeria religion. The council passed the
ordinances in 1987, shortly after a group of Santeria adherents, the
Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, announced plans to build a church and
community center where religious rites including animal sacrifice would
take place.

"The record in this case compels the conclusion that suppression of the
central element of the Santeria worship service was the object of the
ordinances," Justice Kennedy said. Singling Out a Religion

He said it did not matter that the ordinances did not announce their true
intention. Noting that there was no ban on killing animals for other
reasons -- for food, including kosher ritual slaughter, or for recreation, as
in hunting and fishing -- Justice Kennedy said, "Careful drafting ensured
that although Santeria sacrifice is prohibited, killings that are no more
necessary or humane in almost all other circumstances are unpunished."
Justice John Paul Stevens joined Justice Kennedy's opinion in full. Chief
Justice William H. Rehnquist joined it in substantial respects, as did
Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Byron R. White.

Three other Justices -- Harry A. Blackmun, Sandra Day O'Connor and

David H. Souter -- departed from Justice Kennedy's analysis and offered
a broader view of the scope of the guarantee of the free exercise of
religion.

In a separate opinion, Justice Blackmun and Justice O'Connor said the

Constitution protected religion not only from laws that deliberately place
special burdens on religious practice but also from general laws that
place burdens on religion as an incidental effect.

These two Justices were both dissenters from a 1990 decision,

Employment Division v. Smith, in which the Court refused to exempt
members of an American Indian religion that uses peyote in its central
ritual from a state law making criminal any use of peyote and other
hallucinogenic drugs.

In that decision, written by Justice Scalia, the Court announced the

principle to which Justice Kennedy's majority opinion adhered today:
laws that happen to make a religious practice difficult or even impossible
are constitutional as long as they are "neutral" and of "general
applicability."

In their separate opinion today, Justices Blackmun and O'Connor said

they still regarded the 1990 decision as incorrect. "The First
Amendment's protection of religion extends beyond those rare occasions
on which the government explicitly targets religion or a particular
religion for disfavored treatment," they said.

Justice Souter, who was not on the Court when it ruled in the peyote
case, wrote a 20-page separate opinion criticizing that decision today
and calling on his colleagues to reconsider it in the next available case.

The Court's ruling in the peyote case provoked an uproar among many
religious and civil liberties groups, and a bill to overturn it is advancing
in Congress. The bill, named the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, was
passed by the House of Representatives on May 11 and has not yet come
to a vote in the Senate.

The split opinions today answered the question of why the Court had
taken so long to decide the Hialeah case. The case, argued on Nov. 4 of
last year, was the oldest undecided case on the Court's calendar. A
Religious Hybrid

Santeria (pronounced sahnt-ah-REE-ya) is practiced today by some

70,000 Cubans living in South Florida, and experts put the number
nationwide at many thousands, with concentrations in New York,
Chicago and other cities with large Caribbean Hispanic populations. It is
a blend of religions, mixing the traditional Yoruba religion, brought to
Cuba by Africans who came there as slaves, with the Roman Catholic
faith they found there.

In the process, the identities of Yoruban gods became fused with the
identities of Catholic saints; Santeria means "the way of the saints."
Adherents participate in Catholic sacraments, but they also kill animals,
including chickens, pigeons, goats, sheep and turtles, as religious
sacrifices to appeal to their deities.

Usually, the animals are eaten as part of the ritual, but in some rituals
the carcasses are discarded. The city defended its ban on sacrifices in
part as a public health measure, but Justice Kennedy said today that
Hialeah "could have imposed a general regulation on the disposal of
organic garbage" if that was its actual concern.

The principal ordinance defined sacrifice as "to unnecessarily kill,

torment, torture, or mutilate an animal in a public or private ritual or
ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption." The
Santeria church's constitutional challenge to the ordinance was rejected
by both the Federal District Court in Miami and the United States Court
of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta.

Douglas Laycock, a law professor at the University of Texas who

represented the church in its Supreme Court appeal, said today that the
decision, while a victory for his clients, "only picks up the most obvious
cases of suppression" and could permit "more clever city councils" to
draft laws on other subjects that would be harmful to religious practice
while staying within the boundaries the Court has established.

But Ernesto Pichardo, the founder of the Hialeah church, reacted

jubilantly. "The Court's decision is of profound significance," he said
today at a news conference at his home in Dade County. "Animal
sacrifice is an integral part of our faith. It is like our holy meal. The
decision means that our people will no longer feel they are outlaws
because of the way they worship God."

It is unclear how the decision will affect the practice of Santeria in the
New York area. Unlike the Hialeah ordinance, the New York state and
city laws governing cruelty to animals and the keeping of livestock do not
mention religion or ritual, said Herman Cohen, the chief law
enforcement officer with the American Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals. But he added that the law barring the torture of
animals might be called into question.

"Until today, taking an animal into a living room, cutting its throat and
saying a prayer was prohibited," Mr. Cohen said. "I don't know if that's
true anymore."

Briefs in support of the Santeria church were filed by several mainstream

religious groups, including the American Jewish Congress and the
Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs.

Photo: "Animal sacrifice is an integral part of our faith," said Ernesto

Pichardo, founder of the Santeria church in Hialeah, Fla. "It is like our
holy meal. The decision means that our people will no longer feel they
are outlaws because of the way they worship God." Mr. Pichardo awaited
the Supreme Court's ruling yesterday in his office at the church. The
cowrie shells are used in religious ceremonies. (Phillippe Diederich for
The New York Times) (pg. 9)

Animal Sacrifice and Religious Freedom

Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah

David M. O'Brien

The Santeria religion of Cubathe Way of the Saintsmixes West AfricanYoruba

culture with Catholicism. Similar to Haitian voodoo, Santeria has long practiced
animal sacrifice in certain rites. But when Cuban immigrants brought those rituals to
Florida, local authorities were suddenly confronted with a controversial situation that
pitted the regulation of public health and morality against religious freedom.

After Ernesto Pichardo established a Santeria church in Hialeah in the 1980s, the city
of Hialeah responded by passing ordinances banning ritual animal sacrifice. Although
on the surface those ordinances seemed general in intent, they were clearly aimed at
Pichardo's church. When Pichardo subsequently sued the city, a federal court ruled in
the latter's favor, in effect privileging the regulation of public health and morality over
the church's free exercise of its religion.

American religious historians will find here a readable case study

that illuminates the intersection of law and minority religious
experience.
Religious Studies Review

OBriens study is well written and provides ample background on

the significance and history of the interpretations of the first
amendments clauses dealing with religion, as well as an even -
handed, balanced presentation of arguments on both sides of the case.
. . . O'Briens study is written so as to engage the general,
nonacademic reader interested in the topic of freedom of religion,
American pluralism, and a story of the underdog against the state. It
will be the definitive study of this landmark Supreme Court case for a
long time to come.
American Historical Review

See all reviews...

The U.S. Supreme Court heard Pichardo's appeal in 1993 and unanimously decided
that the city had overstepped its bounds in targeting this particular religious group;
however, the court was sharply divided regarding the basis of its decision. Three
concurring opinions registered distinctly different views of the First Amendment, the
limits of government regulation, and the religious freedom of minorities. In the end,
the nine justices collectively concluded that freedom of religious belief was absolute
while the freedom to practice the tenets of any faith were subject to non-
discriminatory local regulations.

David O'Brien, one of America's foremost scholars of the Court, now illuminates this
controversy and its significance for law, government, and religion in America. His
lively account takes us behind the scenes at every stage of the litigation to reveal a
riveting case with more twists and turns than a classic whodunit. Ranging with equal
ease from primitive magic to municipal politics and to the most arcane points of
constitutional law, O'Brien weaves a compelling and instructive tale with a fascinating
array of politicians, lawyers, jurists, civil libertarians, and animal rights advocates.
Offering sharp insights into the key issues and personalities, he highlights cultural
clashes large and small, while maintaining a balance for both the needs of government
and the religious rights of individuals.
The "Santeria case" reaffirmed that our laws must be generally applicable and neutral
and may not discriminate against particular religions. Tracing the path to that
conclusion, Animal Sacrifice and Religious Freedom provides a provocative and
learned account of one of the most unusual and contentious religious freedom cases in
American history.

Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of

Hialeah
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City

of Hialeah

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued November 4, 1992

Decided June 11, 1993

Full case Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc.

name and Ernesto Pichardo v. City of Hialeah

Citations 508 U.S. 520 (more)

113 S. Ct. 2217, 124 L. Ed. 2d 472
(1993).

Prior history dismissing individuals, 688 F.Supp.

1522 (S.D. Fla. 1988), summary
judgment for defendant, 723 F. Supp.
1467 (S.D. Fla. 1989), aff'd, 936 F.2d
 586 (11th Cir. 1991).

Holding

The states cannot restrict religiously-mandated ritual

slaughter of animals, regardless of the purpose of the
slaughter.

Court membership

Chief Justice
William Rehnquist
Associate Justices
Byron White Harry Blackmun
John P. Stevens Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy
David Souter Clarence Thomas

Case opinions

Majority Kennedy (Parts I, III, IV), joined by

Rehnquist, White, Stevens, Scalia,
Souter, Thomas

Majority Kennedy (II-B), joined by Rehnquist,

White, Stevens, Scalia, Thomas

Majority Kennedy (Parts II-A-1, II-A-3), joined by

Rehnquist, Stevens, Scalia, Thomas

Concurrence Kennedy (Part II-A-2), joined by Stevens

Concurrence Scalia (in part and judgment), joined by

Rehnquist, Souter

Concurrence Blackmun (in judgment), joined by

O'Connor

Laws applied
 U.S. Const. Free Exercise Clause, 42 U.S.C. 1983, City
of Hialeah Ordinances 87-52, 87-71, 87-72

Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993), was a case in which
the Supreme Court of the United States held that an ordinance passed in Hialeah, Florida, forbidding
the "unnecessar[y]" killing of "an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary
purpose of food consumption", was unconstitutional.

Contents
[hide]

1Background
2Supreme Court
o 2.1Opinion of the Court
o 2.2Scalia's concurrence in part
o 2.3Souter's concurrence in part
o 2.4Blackmun's concurrence in the judgment
3Subsequent developments
4See also
5References
6Further reading
7External links

Background[edit]
Santera is an Afro-American religion developed as a syncretism of Roman Catholicism and Yoruba
religion by Yoruba people brought as slaves from Yorubaland to Cuba by the Atlantic slave
trade.[1] Adherents believe they can fulfill their destiny through the aid of beings known as orishas,
who subsist off blood from animal sacrifice.[2] Animals, usually chickens, killed during ritual
slaughter are then cooked and eaten by the celebrants, except during death and healing rituals,
where sick energy is believed to have passed into the sacrifice.[3] Santeria has been subject to
widespread persecution in Cuba, so it is traditionally practiced in secret, employing saint
symbolism.[4]
The Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc., is a Florida nonprofit organized in 1973 by Ernesto
Pichardo, who was an Italero-level priest in the Santeria faith.[5] The Lucum language is used in the
Santeria liturgy and Babal-Ay is the spirit of wrath and disease. In April 1987, the Church leased a
property at 173 W. 5th Street, Hialeah, in Miami-Dade County, Florida and announced its intention to
use the site to openly practice the faith.[6]
The Hialeah City Council held an emergency public session on June 9, 1987.[7] At the session,
Councilman Silvio Cardoso stated that the religion is "in violation of everything this country stands
for"; Councilman Andres Mejides observed that the Bible does not allow this particular type of animal
sacrifice; and Councilman Julio Martinez noted (to audience applause) that in Cuba "people were put
in jail for practicing this religion."[8] Hialeah's police chaplain testified that the Church worshiped
"demons" and the city attorney testified that "This community will not tolerate religious practices
abhorrent to its citizens."[9] Pichardos brief testimony was met with taunts from the audience.[10]
At the end of the session the city council passed a resolution announcing its commitment to prohibit
"all religious groups which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety.[11] The city further
passed a resolution incorporating Floridas animal cruelty statute into the city code and the city
attorney obtained a Florida Attorney General's Opinion from Bob Butterworth concluding that the
state statute did not permit ritual animal sacrifice.[12]
In September 1987, the city council unanimously passed three new ordinances that criminalized
sacrifices of animals for any type of ritual, regardless of whether or not the flesh or blood of the
animal is to be consumed.[13] The city council exempted Kosher slaughterhouses, regular
slaughterhouses, hunting, fishing, pest extermination, euthanasia of stray animals, and feeding live
rabbits to greyhounds.[14]
The Church sued in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. On June 10,
1988, U.S. District Judge Eugene P. Spellman granted absolute immunity to the individual city
council members and the mayor.[15] On October 5, 1989, after a nine-day bench trial, Judge
Spellman granted summary judgment to the city.[16] In 1991, the United States Court of Appeals for
the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in an unsigned one-paragraph per curiam decision, where it noted that
Judge Spellman "employed an arguably stricter standard" than that applied in Employment Division
v. Smith (1990), which had in the interim found Native Americans could be fired for their ritual use
of peyote.[17] In Smith, Justice Antonin Scalia had even cited Judge Spellmans opinion as authority,
which the city highlighted in their appeals brief.[18]
The Court in Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) had explicitly provided Amish parents a religious exemption
from mandatory school attendance under the Free Exercise Clause.[18] However, in the years since,
free-exercise claimants had lost every case before the Court, with the exception of a line of
employment decisions cases terminated by Smith.[18] The Church's petition for certiorari from
the Supreme Court of the United States was granted, with Douglas Laycock appearing for the
Church during oral arguments on November 4, 1992.[19]

Supreme Court[edit]
Opinion of the Court[edit]
On June 11, 1993, the Supreme Court unanimously reversed. Justice Anthony Kennedy, in an
Opinion of the Court joined in parts by Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Justices Byron
White, John Paul Stevens, Antonin Scalia, David Souter, and Clarence Thomas concluded that the
citys ordinances violated the Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution.
Kennedy read the Smith decision as requiring a compelling governmental interest if a law is not of
neutral and general applicability.[20] Kennedy went on, in a section Souter and White refused to join,
to conclude that although the ordinances were facially neutral, they were religiously gerrymandered
with care to only apply to religious killings.[21] Kennedy, in a section only joined by Stevens, details
the ordinances legislative history, even citing taped excerpts of the Hialeah City Council
Meeting.[22] Next, in a section Souter refused to join, Kennedy notes the numerous exemptions in the
Florida statute, concluding the law is not generally applicable because it effectively applies only
against conduct motivated by religious belief.[23] Finally, in a section joined by the full seven justice
majority, Kennedy applies strict scrutiny, which the city ordinances fail.[24]
Because the ordinance suppressed more religious conduct than was necessary to achieve its stated
ends, it was deemed unconstitutional, with Justice Anthony Kennedy stating in the decision,
religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent or comprehensible to others in order to
merit First Amendment protection.[25]
Scalia's concurrence in part[edit]
Justice Scalia joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist, defended the Smith decision and attacked the use
of legislative intent, opining that there would be no constitutional violation if the Hialeah City Council
set out resolutely to suppress the practices of Santeria, but ineptly adopted ordinances that failed to
do so.[26]
Souter's concurrence in part[edit]
Justice Souter, writing alone for eighteen pages, noted that The Smith rule, in my view, may be
reexamined consistently with principles of stare decisis.[27]
Blackmun's concurrence in the judgment[edit]
Justice Harry Blackmun, joined by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, concurred in the judgment only.
Refusing to endorse the approach used in the majority opinion, Blackmun wrote, I continue to
believe that Smith was wrongly decided. Blackmun goes on, citing an amicus curiae brief by People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, to observe that had this case presented a law that sincerely
pursued the goal of protecting animals from cruel treatment, the result may have been different.[28]

Subsequent developments[edit]
Somewhat similarly in 2009, a freedom of religion case related to animal sacrifice was taken to
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in the case of Merced v. Kasson.[29]Merced was a
Santeria priest and the president of Templo Yoruba Omo Orisha Texas, Inc., a Santeria religious
group. He challenged Euless, Texas city ordinances prohibiting the slaughter of four-legged animals.
The court ruled that the ordinances "substantially burden plaintiff's free exercise of religion without
advancing a compelling governmental interest using the least restrictive means" and that Merced
was entitled under the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act (TRFRA) to an injunction
preventing the city from enforcing its ordinances that burdened his religious practices relating to the
use of animals. The court did not reach Merced's claims under the First and Fourteenth
Amendments.[29]

Animal Sacrifice and the First Amendment:

The Case of Lukumi Babalu Aye
ANIMAL LAW AND THE COURTS: A READER, Taimie Bryant, David N.
Cassuto, Rebecca Huss, eds., Thomson West, 2008
28 Pages Posted: 16 Jun 2008 Last revised: 5 Sep 2011

David N. Cassuto
Pace University - School of Law

Date Written: May 13, 2011

Abstract
Animal sacrifice and religious ritual have intertwined for thousands of years.
The practice remains integral to Santera, an Afro-Cuban religion that has
many adherents in the United States, particularly in Florida. In 1987, when
the Santera Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye announced plans to open in
Hialeah, Florida, the city reacted by passing a set of ordinances banning
animal sacrifice. The Church sued and the issue of whether the ritual killing
of animals constituted protected religious expression eventually made its way
to the Supreme Court. Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah
asked the Court to resolve two linked constitutional questions: Does the ritual
slaughter of animals constitute religious expression protected by the First
Amendment of the United States Constitution? And, if so, (or even if not)
may the practice be banned or regulated by the State?

These are difficult questions and the Court's attempt to answer them raises
more questions still. This chapter examines the Court's reasoning in the
Lukumi case to determine whether it clarified or further clouded the
relationship between animal sacrifice and the First Amendment. It argues that
the plurality opinion's attempt to cast the Hialeah ordinances as
underperforming animal protection statutes was both misguided and
counterproductive.

Defining the Hialeah ordinances as anti-cruelty rather than as anti-sacrifice

enabled the Court to find the laws both overbroad and underinclusive. For
those reasons, the Court deemed the ordinances to be intolerably burdensome
to religious practices. This reasoning falls prey to the same imprecision the
Court imputes to the challenged laws. It demands that the laws be both
narrowly drawn to accomplish a specific goal while yet remaining broadly
applicable to behavior that lies beyond their stated scope. Such conflicting
expectations create an impossible standard. In addition, by classifying the
animal sacrifice laws as failed anti-cruelty statutes and then invalidating them
on First Amendment grounds, the Court jeopardized future attempts to
legislate animal protection laws, even when such laws only incidentally
impact religious practices.
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