Getting his goat: religious freedom in Texas.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Brief article

Jose Merced wants to cut a few throats, but the city of Euless, Texas, won't let him. Merced, a Santeria priest, is challenging a local ordinance that prohibits the slaughter of goats, an essential part of the sacrifices required by his Afro-Caribbean religion.

In April, after U.S. District Judge John McBryde upheld the slaughter ban, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an appeal on Merced's behalf, contending that the ordinance violates his constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. Its argument relies heavily on Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, a 1993 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a city ban on animal sacrifice. That law was ostensibly a public health measure, but the court decided it violated the First Amendment because it singled out religious slaughter and was passed in response to the establishment of a Santeria church.

The Euless...