Miami, USA - A federal appeals court has upheld Boca Raton's right to prohibit upright religious symbols in its city-owned cemetery.
Several owners of grave sites at the 21-acre cemetery sued the city in 1998, saying a ban requiring that grave markers be at ground level restricted their religious freedom to erect crosses, statues and other religious symbols. The city's ordinance allows religious symbols, but prohibits vertical markers that impede maintenance or detract from the 4,500-plot cemetery's design.
The families said the law clashed with the then-recently passed Florida Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which forbids local government from restricting free exercise of religion without a compelling reason.
In 1999, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp in West Palm Beach upheld the city's ban. The families appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which then asked the Florida Supreme Court to clarify whether the ban violated the new state law. In September, the state high court said no, leading to Thursday's ruling.
"We always thought that the rules were reasonable and that the memorial park concept in the cemetery did not violate any law," Fort Lauderdale attorney Beverly Pohl said Thursday. Pohl and Nova Southeastern University law professor Bruce Rogow had represented the city.
The Florida Supreme Court handcuffed the federal appellate judges, said Doug Laycock, a University of Texas law professor specializing in cases involving religious liberty.
"The Florida legislature was very careful to say it wanted to protect practices motivated by religion," he said. "The practice didn't have to be required by religion. The Florida Supreme Court took that right out of statute."
Added West Palm Beach attorney Jim Green, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer in the case: "We believe that our best claim was on the state law claim, and we're going to review our prospects for seeking review from the U.S. Supreme Court."
A hurdle will be a U.S. Supreme Court ruling about 15 years ago that said laws that apply to everyone do not constitute an undue burden on the exercise of religion, Green said. But, he said, "there's been increasing criticism of that decision and with a new Supreme Court justice, we may decide to seek review."