Religion, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution.

The diversity in American religious practice led to increased tensions when the First Amendment limitations on the powers of the government to regulate religious practice came into conflict with governmental obligations to protect society at large. During the 1980s the Supreme Court had insisted that religious activity could not be regulated by the state unless the state had a compelling interest and the proposed regulation was the least restrictive means of doing so. A Supreme Court ruling in 1990, however, loosened those restrictions on local, state, and federal governments. The case, Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990) involved two members of the Native American Church who were fired from their jobs as addiction counselors after having consumed peyote in a traditional religious ceremony. When they applied for unemployment compensation, their application was denied because...