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Page Number: 12

8 

TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH OF COLUMBIA, INC. v.
COMER 
Opinion of the Court 

from timber harvesting or road construction on a particu-
lar  tract  of  federal  land,  even  though  the  Government’s
action  would  obstruct  the  religious  practice  of  several
Native American Tribes that held certain sites on the tract 
to  be  sacred.  Accepting  that  “[t]he  building  of  a  road  or 
the  harvesting  of  timber  . . .  would  interfere  significantly 
with private persons’ ability to pursue spiritual fulfillment
according  to  their  own  religious  beliefs,”  we  nonetheless 
found  no  free  exercise  violation,  because  the  affected 
individuals  were  not  being  “coerced  by  the  Government’s 
action  into  violating  their  religious  beliefs.”  Id.,  at  449. 
The  Court  specifically  noted,  however,  that  the  Govern-
ment action did not “penalize religious activity by denying 
any  person  an  equal  share  of  the  rights,  benefits,  and 
privileges enjoyed by other citizens.”  Ibid.
  In  Employment  Division,  Department  of  Human  Re-
sources  of  Oregon  v.  Smith,  494  U. S.  872  (1990),  we  re-
jected  a  free  exercise  claim  brought  by  two  members  of  a 
Native  American  church  denied  unemployment  benefits
because they had violated Oregon’s drug laws by ingesting 
peyote for sacramental purposes.  Along the same lines as
our  decision  in  Lyng,  we  held  that  the  Free  Exercise 
Clause  did  not  entitle  the  church  members  to  a  special 
dispensation from the general criminal laws on account of 
their religion.  At the same time, we again made clear that
the  Free  Exercise  Clause  did  guard  against  the  govern-
ment’s  imposition  of  “special  disabilities  on  the  basis  of 
religious  views  or  religious  status.”    494  U. S.,  at  877 
(citing McDaniel, 435 U. S. 618).2 

—————— 

2 This is not to say that any application of a valid and neutral law of 
general  applicability  is  necessarily  constitutional  under  the  Free 
Exercise  Clause.    Recently,  in  Hosanna-Tabor  Evangelical  Lutheran 
Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U. S. 171 (2012), this Court held that
the  Religion  Clauses  required  a  ministerial  exception  to  the  neutral
prohibition on employment retaliation contained in the Americans with
Disabilities  Act.    Distinguishing  Smith,  we  explained  that  while  that