Arizona has joined with 13 other states to file an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Marine Lance Corporal Monifa Sterling who was court martialed for posting biblical verses at her desk. The attorneys general from Arkansas, Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Txas, Utah and West Virginia are asking the court to take the case.
The attorneys general want the court to correct a “misinterpretation” of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) by the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Texas is leading the effort.
“The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was established by Congress to protect religious liberty,” said Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. “But rulings by lower courts have incorrectly limited the safeguards put in place by the act. I hope the Supreme Court will take this case and recognize that a Marine’s decision to post Bible verses around her workspace is precisely the type of religious activity RFRA was intended to protect.”
Last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces refused to apply the strict scrutiny dictated by the RFRA and instead decided that the scrutiny is only triggered if the government forces individuals “to engage in conduct that their religion forbids or … prevents them from engaging in conduct their religion requires.” Lower courts ruled that RFRA did not apply because they believed that prohibiting the posting of a Bible verse does not constitute a “substantial interference” with “religious exercise” protected by that law.
In the brief the attorneys general said, “with hundreds of religions practiced in the Nation, telling what is ‘important’ for a particular adherent’s faith not only would threaten impermissible theological judgments but would be difficult and almost certainly produce inconsistent results across similar cases.”