Yesterday, the people of Switzerland
decided voted to institute a constitutional ban against minarets, the tower of a
mosque. Although Muslims only constitute 6% of the Swiss population, proponents
of the ban “labeled
minarets as symbols of rising Muslim political power that could one day
transform Switzerland into an Islamic nation.”
My first reaction to reading about this
vote was sadness, followed by a feeling of pride that this same ban could not
have happened in the United States. After all, we have the First
Amendment to our Constitution, which proclaims that the government can
neither endorse one religion over another, nor inhibit the free exercise of
religion.
But that certainly does not mean our
country is without its struggles for religious liberty. Here in Maine, Afghan
Muslims in Portland were denied the right to practice Islam by the City of
Portland in a former TV repair shop for zoning reasons. As a result, the Maine
Civil Liberties Union Foundation sued the City of Portland. At the time of the
lawsuit, Executive Director of the MCLU, Shenna Bellows, noted that, "The city of Portland is sacrificing
constitutional principle for bureaucratic rule…you shouldn't need a permit to
pray."
In the complaint, which can be read
here, the MCLU asserts that in addition to the religious liberty protections
provided by the Maine and U.S. Constitutions, the Religious Land Use and
Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) protects the “religious
use of property”. Given these protections, the MCLU asked the Court to tell
the City of Portland that, when
local zoning ordinances come in conflict with federal law and the U.S.
Constitution, the zoning ordinances must give way.
Of course, the vote banning minarets in
Switzerland is on another level of undermining religious liberty, but the vote
did remind me that it must be vigilantly safeguarded, even if it is
constitutionally protected. After all, a similar zoning ordinance conflicted
with the religious liberty of Rabbi
Moshe Wilansky of Portland in his own home a year before the mosque case cited
above, proving that the law continues to cause unnecessary challenges to the
free exercise of religion in the United States. The ACLU is a vigilant proponent
of religious liberty, you can learn more about those
ACLU cases here.