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Religious-rights reforms running into obstacles
DANIEL KURTZMAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - The push to secure broad protections for religious practice around the country has hit a roadblock.
California Gov. Pete Wilson has said he will veto a new state religious freedom measure because it extends protections to prisoners. Wilson's threat comes after a similar move in Illinois, where Gov. Jim Edgar has said he will not sign a religious freedom bill passed by the Legislature unless it is amended to exclude prisoners. Both Wilson and Edgar have argued that the accommodations for prisoners under the bills could create security problems.
The veto threats constitute a major setback to efforts to put new state religious freedom statutes on the books. Since last year, state lawmakers have been working with a coalition of religious groups, including Jewish organizations, to craft legislation aimed at filling the void left when the Supreme Court invalidated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
In striking down the 1993 law, commonly known as RFRA, the high court in essence said it was unconstitutional for Congress to dictate a standard for religious freedom to the states. Seeking to adopt their own standards, the California and Illinois bills, as well as similar bills pending in state legislatures around the country, prohibit - as the original federal bill did - government from substantially burdening a person's free exercise of religion unless there is a "compelling interest."
While the First Amendment guarantees free religious exercise, activists say religious freedom legislation is necessary to secure religious rights when, for example, a law prohibits state employees from wearing hats or head coverings in the workplace.
"The difficulty for religious practice today is a sort of thoughtless government regulation, not intentional persecution," said Marc Stern, co-director of the American Jewish Congress' legal department.
Seeking to restore as broad protections as possible in the wake of the Supreme Court's action, religious freedom advocates have been urging Congress to adopt some new protections at the federal level. But activists have put most of their hopes into a campaign to effectively replicate the original RFRA state by state.
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