Landor v. Louisiana Dept of Corrections and Public Safety · ¶67

RLUIPA is Congress’s latest contribution to a long-running religious-liberty dialogue between Congress and this Court. That dialogue began, for our purposes, with Employ ment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990). Smith is a seminal case in which the Court held that the First Amendment does not carve out religious exemptions from neutral and generally applicable laws. Id., at 878–882. Smith “recognized, however, that the political branches could shield religious exercise through legislative accommodation.” Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 714 (2005). Taking up the invitation, Congress sought to “restore” via statute what Smith left unprotected by the Constitution. Tanzin, 592 U. S., at 45. The result was RFRA, which forbade States and the Federal Government alike from substantially burdening religious exercise without compelling interest and narrow…

slip opinion, revised 6/28/26
Source edition
Passage preview. Read in context for the complete text, notes and references.