Opinion ID: 784143
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The entanglement between government and religion created by RLUIPA

Text: 43 The third prong of the Lemon test prohibits an excessive entanglement of government with religion. Lemon, 403 U.S. at 613, 91 S.Ct. 2105. Ghashiyah held that RLUIPA's nebulous definition of religious exercise, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(7)(A), creates an excessive entanglement because it forces the states to become involved with, knowledgeable about, and exceedingly sensitive to the varied religious practices of their inmates. It also forces the federal courts to become involved in prison administration, an area that the Supreme Court has admonished judges to avoid. 250 F.Supp.2d at 1031. 44 Although Ghashiyah's reasoning is plausible, we question whether RLUIPA requires any greater interaction between government officials and religion than exists under present law. Assume, for example, that a prisoner who is a member of a nontraditional religion claims a First Amendment right to a special diet that is required by the prisoner's religious beliefs. Before reaching the underlying constitutional claim, a court must first determine (1) whether the religious beliefs are sincerely held, and (2) whether the prisoner's beliefs constitute a religion within the meaning of the [F]irst [A]mendment. Africa v. Pennsylvania, 662 F.2d 1025, 1029-31 (3d Cir.1981) (holding that a prisoner's belief system was not a religion for purposes of First Amendment analysis). Deciding whether a specific act or practice qualifies as religious exercise under RLUIPA arguably creates no greater entanglement than deciding whether a particular belief system constitutes a religion under the First Amendment. However, because we have concluded that RLUIPA has the impermissible effect of advancing religion, we have no need to further explore the question of whether RLUIPA violates Lemon's entanglement prong. 45 C. The unpersuasive nature of the cases upholding RLUIPA and RFRA 46 The cases that have upheld RLUIPA and RFRA against constitutional attack have essentially relied on the rationale of Amos. See, e.g., Charles v. Verhagen, 2003 WL 22455960, No. 02-3572, slip op. at 12-13 (7th Cir. Oct. 30, 2003); Mayweathers v. Newland, 314 F.3d 1062, 1068-69 (9th Cir.2002). We believe that such reliance is misplaced. As we have already discussed, the exemption in Amos was arguably necessary to avoid an Establishment Clause violation. Amos, 483 U.S. at 336, 107 S.Ct. 2862; see also id. at 344, 107 S.Ct. 2862 (Brennan, J., concurring). But RLUIPA extends protection to religious exercise in prison far beyond what is required by the Establishment Clause; it imposes strict scrutiny where the Establishment Clause requires only a rational-relationship review. See Turner, 482 U.S. 78, 107 S.Ct. 2254, 96 L.Ed.2d 64; O'Lone, 482 U.S. 342, 107 S.Ct. 2400, 96 L.Ed.2d 282. 47 The exemption in Amos, moreover, was a narrowly tailored solution to the potential Establishment Clause problem created by Title VII's application to religious institutions. RLUIPA, on the other hand, does not address a particular burden on religious exercise, but instead exempts religious prisoners from many generally applicable prison regulations. See Hamilton, 1 U. Pa. J. Const. L. at 13-14. We believe that Professor Hamilton's comment that [c]omparing RFRA to Amos is like comparing apples to oranges is equally applicable when comparing RLUIPA to Amos. See id. This same point was expressed somewhat differently in Madison: 48 The difference between Amos and RLUIPA is, like all Establishment Clause cases, a question of degree. However, the difference in degree between the two is substantial, and congressional neutrality is the line that divides them. When Congress has acted to impose an affirmative burden on religion, it is necessary for Congress to remove that burden in order to retain a position of neutrality towards religious belief. However, when Congress acts to provide religious inmates, and only religious inmates, with a level of constitutional protection that the Supreme Court has deemed unnecessary to protect religious rights, it has gone beyond protecting religion to affirmatively advancing it. 49 240 F.Supp.2d at 577 n. 9; see also Ghashiyah, 250 F.Supp.2d at 1028-29 (noting the fundamental distinction between the exemption in Amos and RLUIPA). 50 These authorities have convinced us that reliance on the rationale of Amos to sustain the constitutionality of RLUIPA is misplaced. We therefore conclude that the cases supporting RLUIPA are unpersuasive.