I really don’t know what to make of this, which is a story about an unusual religious liberties lawsuit that the city of San Antonio and the 2021 constitutional amendment that expanded religious freedom in Texas, stemming from a backlash to restrictions on church attendance during COVID.
And that’s the libertarian fuel that has reanimated a lawsuit against the City of San Antonio over its plans to fell dozens of trees and harass migratory birds to make way for a bond-funded redevelopment project in Brackenridge Park.
Religious faith takes many forms. Some encounter the sacred in a converted gymnasium with amplified guitars and drums, others at the bend of a river whose twists appear to reflect a constellation floating in the night sky. That’s the case for Gary Perez and Matilde Torres, members of the Lipan-Apache ‘Hoosh Chetzel’ Native American Church, two Indigenous area residents who have been fighting the City’s efforts to remove—at one tally—more than 100 trees from the river’s headwaters. They also oppose San Antonio’s ongoing harassment of migratory birds that have made the trees in the city park their home.
The religious liberty claim has proven to be a boon for, as Canales was quoted, protecting religious services from regulation wasn’t just a matter for Christians, but it was also “about mosques, it’s about all people of faith.”
For Perez and Torres, and those who join them at a bend of the San Antonio River known by the City of San Antonio as Lambert Beach, the headwaters, and this spot in particular, is a sacred site.
The waters, the trees, the birds, and stars above all organize a “sacred ecology” the group has sought to defend against the City of San Antonio’s redevelopment plans.
Their federal lawsuit that dropped the day after Mayor Ron Nirenberg pushed through a City Council vote in spite of warnings from a Council colleague that he was risking potentially permanently spoiling relations with the broader community that has mobilized to protect the site.
Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ruled that the City of San Antonio, which had fenced off the sacred area, ostensibly to protect the public from what they described as a hanging branch, must allow access for groups of 20 or fewer members of the Lipan-Apache Native American Church—but for no more than an hour and only on “specified astronomical dates.”
He rejected, however, the need to change plans to destroy the trees or stop aggressive bird deterrence in the park.
An appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit was initially rejected. But the change to the Texas Constitution—Article I, Section 6-a—was later considered reason to consider the matter again through the lens of religious liberty.
On Wednesday, December 5, 2024, the Supreme Court of Texas heard oral arguments in “Perez v. City of San Antonio.”
“Like their ancestors before them, Gary Perez and Matilde Torres perform religious ceremonies at a bend in the San Antonio River,” said the couple’s legal representative, John Greil of the University of the University of Texas Law and Religion Clinic, during introductory oral arguments before the court.
“They believe that bend is sacred and that the cormorants that nest in the trees, and the trees themselves, form the central components of those religious ceremonies. The City of San Antonio has chosen a construction that will remove all but 14 of the 80 trees at that bank.”
Article I, Section 6-a of the Texas Constitution bars the state of Texas and any subdivisions within it (like cities and counties) from limiting or prohibiting the practice of religious activities. Though originally aimed at reopening churches which may have had their activities limited over pandemic-related health concerns, the amendment is broadly written. On Wednesday, the justices of the the Supreme Court of Texas met to attempt to figure out where the boundaries of that amendment lie. It is the first court case in the state’s history based around the religious freedom amendment, according to Greil.
“We’re moving the needle forward with this case,” Perez told Deceleration after the hearing. “We’re moving justice in the direction it needs to go.”
However, Perez stressed that the hearing was not about the validity of his group’s spiritual beliefs or practices in San Antonio. Instead, the court was debating what is necessary for a city to meet the requirements of the state constitution in regards to freedom of religion. “The state of Texas and its laws make it very clear that they protect the freedom of religion under just about any circumstance,” Perez said.
This is back in the State Supreme Court because of the change to the state constitution – the Fifth Circuit will use the ruling from this case, expected in August, to guide their action. We could get something sweeping or narrow, it’s too soon to say. For obvious reasons, I’m leery of expansions of religious liberty in this climate, but these are not the typical plaintiffs and I have sympathy for their claims. I had no idea about any of this, and I was drawn in by the story, so I’m noting it here and we’ll see what happens. Go read the rest.