by TChris

The Bush administration has taken a position that is hostile to the free exercise of religion in a case accepted for review today by the Supreme Court. The case asks whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act -- a federal statute enacted to protect religious practices that might otherwise transgress the law -- protects members of the New Mexico branch of a Brazilian church who want to ingest hoasca during religious ceremonies. Hoasca contains DMT, a mildly hallucinogenic substance regulated by federal law.

After the Supreme Court ruled that state drug laws trumped the free exercise of Native American religious practices that include the consumption of peyote, Congress enacted the RFRA. The law requires the government to show a compelling interest in criminalizing religious practices. The Court later struck down the Act as it applied to state laws. In the case now before the Court, the Tenth Circuit prohibited the federal government from enforcing its drug laws against individuals who use hoasca in religious ceremonies.

The case poses an interesting conflict for the Bush administration, which refuses to cede ground in its war against drugs even at the risk of alienating its religious supporters.

Religious groups say the Bush administration would trample spiritual freedom in its zeal to enforce federal drug laws. The Christian Legal Society, the National Association of Evangelicals and a top U.S. Presbyterian Church official opposed the government at the lower court level.

Update: More about the case here.