Damn the Tea

taken from:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060221/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_religious_tea


WASHINGTON - A small branch of a South American religious sect may use hallucinogenic tea as part of a ritual intended to connect with God, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

In its first religious freedom decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, the court said the government cannot hinder religious practices without proof of a "compelling" need to do so.
"This is a very important decision for minority religious freedom in this country," said lawyer John Boyd, who represents about 130 U.S. members of O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal who live in New Mexico, California and Colorado.

The tea, which contains an illegal drug known as DMT, is considered sacred to members of the sect, which has a blend of Christian beliefs and South American traditions. Members believe they can understand God only by drinking the tea, which is consumed twice a month at four-hour ceremonies.

Roberts, in writing the opinion for the court, said the government had failed to prove that federal drug laws should outweigh the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Congress passed in 1993 to prohibit burdening a person's exercise of religion.

The Bush administration had argued that the drug in the tea not only violates a federal narcotics law but a treaty in which the United States promised to block the importation of drugs including dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT.

Religious groups of various faiths, along with civil liberties organizations, filed friend-of-the-court briefs supporting the sect. "This is just one step in the right direction in the fight for religious liberty," said Jared Leland, legal counsel for The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in Washington.

New Justice
Samuel did not take part in the case, which was argued last fall before Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor's retirement. Alito was on the bench for the first time on Tuesday.
The justices sent the case back to a federal appeals court, which could consider more evidence.
Roberts, writing his second opinion since joining the court, said that religious freedom cases can be difficult "but Congress has determined that courts should strike sensible balances."
The case is Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal, 04-1084.

My oppinion

Wait a minute here....

ok ok I get it. We cannot violate your religion in any way so we can't ban the druggie tea correct? So if I were to say that my religion involved me taking heroin and smoking Mary-Jane 5 times a day would that be ok? i don't think so...

But of course! If multiple people do this it has to be ok right? I mean really, can a bunch of people doped up on hallucination inducing druggie tea really be all that dangerous? Of course they can! Drugs mess with your mind man, they like do bad stuff to it dude. Drugs are bad M'kay? Even if it is for a religous purpose It should not be ok. Its your brain your messing with, your last sanctuary, the only place tha others cannot get to. And by taking these drugs you are allowing the last safe haven you have, to be simply demolished.

I understand why they need to allow us to have our religious freedoms but this is not what that should have been intended for. If they allow this to continue we may just have new religions popping up saying that doing all drugs makes them closer to God. An then we could have "religious extremists" smuggling drugs into the country and saying that it was done in the name of their god, again taking this freedom too far.

This freedom should allow us to speak our religion freely and do our religious acts, i will agree with that, however, this should not cover acts that are illegal in our country. If part of someones Religion asked for a sacrifice (human or animal) we would certainly ban that. So why not ban the tea as well? It obviously has illegal drugs in it, and we are not allowed to have (or take) those drugs, so we should not be able to drink the druggie tea.