Santeria and religious freedom in Euless, TX

A court case forced a Santeria priest to reveal some of his religion’s secrets. Its ritual of animal sacrifice, he revealed on his own.

By Kimberly Thorpe
Published on October 21, 2009 at 2:33pm

The Euless neighborhood is mostly quiet, a sleepy suburb of pleasant ranch-style homes, winding creeks and mossy oaks that looks as if it could have been plucked from any American city. Except, of course, for the ancient gods that populate the home and religion of one of the area's most controversial residents.

But Jose Merced doesn't shy away from controversy—and he has no plans of doing so on this crisp day in late September. No matter that his neighbors remain uneasy with the ritual singing and drumming that are part of his Santería religion; no matter that they might, as before, call the police if they feared he was engaging in animal sacrifice; no matter that the city of Euless, even after losing a drawn-out lawsuit that tested the boundaries of religious liberty in Texas, is still searching for new ways to shut down Merced's spiritual practices. For him, the deities who reside in the back room of his house have been silenced long enough.

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Merced recalled what the police told him in court: "They said, well, if you're not doing it today, make sure you don't do it tomorrow, either, because you cannot do it." Shortly after the second complaint, Merced went to Euless City Hall and asked for a permit that would allow him to perform animal sacrifices. City staff said no such permit existed. With the threat of arrest looming, Merced felt he had no choice but to sue. In December 2006, Merced, through his attorney John Wheat Gibson, sought an injunction in a Fort Worth federal court prohibiting Euless from preventing him from exercising his right to practice his religion. The suit alleged that the city had violated the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments as well as the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Because his case was the first to invoke the act's protections, Judge John McBryde had no precedent upon which to rely.

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Enacted in 1999 under then-Governor George Bush, the TRFRA prevents Texas state and local governments from "substantially burdening" a person's free exercise of religion unless that government can show a compelling interest in doing so. The law was a reaction to a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a Native American peyote-use case, which held that the First Amendment did not prohibit the state of Oregon from banning the sacramental use of peyote through general criminal drug laws as long as they do not specifically target Native American religious ritual. It did say, however, that the legislative process could be employed to protect the free exercise of religion.

Much more at link...
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2009-10-22/news/a-court-case-forced-a-santeria-priest-to-reveal-some-of-his-religion-s-secrets-it-s-ritual-of-animal-sacrifice-he-revealed-on-his-own?src=newsletter