A Court Decision in NY Elbows a Village in Favor of Religious Rights
MAMARONECK, N.Y. It all began with an Indian who wanted to eat peyote.
His name was Alfred Smith. He belonged to the Klamath tribe in Oregon and was a member of the North American Church, whose sacramental rites included ingesting peyote buds.
On March 2, 1984, when he told his boss at the alcohol and drug treatment center where he worked that he would be attending a church meeting the following day, he was told that if he used peyote there he would be fired. He did, and he was.
It’s a circuitous road from there to a federal appeals court ruling last week that the village of Mamaroneck had improperly denied an application by the Westchester Day School, an Orthodox Jewish school, for a new $12 million classroom building.
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His name was Alfred Smith. He belonged to the Klamath tribe in Oregon and was a member of the North American Church, whose sacramental rites included ingesting peyote buds.
On March 2, 1984, when he told his boss at the alcohol and drug treatment center where he worked that he would be attending a church meeting the following day, he was told that if he used peyote there he would be fired. He did, and he was.
It’s a circuitous road from there to a federal appeals court ruling last week that the village of Mamaroneck had improperly denied an application by the Westchester Day School, an Orthodox Jewish school, for a new $12 million classroom building.