Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872

Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, is a primary legal source of the first order, the actual 1990 United States Supreme Court decision holding that a generally applicable, religiously neutral law can be enforced against religious practice, in this case peyote use in Native American Church ceremony, without violating the First Amendment's free exercise clause. As the Court's own opinion, it is directly authoritative for what current constitutional doctrine holds and for the majority's stated legal reasoning. It is also one of the most contested free exercise rulings in modern constitutional history, prompting Congress to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act specifically in response, so it should be cited as the controlling legal holding while noting the sustained legal and religious-liberty debate it triggered rather than as an uncontroversial settlement of the underlying question.