🚀 go-pugleaf

At 3:16 PM -0400 7/24/97, drusius@aol.com wrote:

> The U.S. Supreme Court had struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act
> just two  weeks ago. That act, passed in  1993, said a government decision
> that substantially interfered with a person's exercise of religion had  to
> be justified by some state interest or was void, Kreiger explained.  "It
> raised some interesting issues," he said, but with the act struck down so
> was the Ponkapoag's case.

This is not an accurate statement of the effect of the RFRA decision in
Massachusetts. MA law provides its own basis for protecting religious
freedom, independent of and stronger than US law.  See:

http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/nativeweb/subject/trapp/memo_rights.html

The Ponkapoag was undoubtedly derailed on grounds other than the demise of
RFRA.

Peter

--                      --                      --                      --
Peter d'Errico                                     derrico@legal.umass.edu
Legal Studies Faculty                               voice: 413-545-2003
University of Massachusetts: Amherst, MA, USA 01003      fax: 413-545-1640
                 http://www.umass.edu/legal/derrico/