The worship site is Oak Flat, a 2,200-acre tract of land in Arizona's Tonto National Forest where members of the Apache Indian tribe have gone to worship and conduct religious ceremonies for centuries.
While the federal government has protected the sacred site since the Eisenhower administration, in 2014, the government transferred the land to a foreign-owned mining company Resolution Copper, which plans to obliterate the site by creating a 1,000-foot crater, due to a large copper deposit 7,000 feet below Oak Flat's surface.
In response to the land transfer, a group of Apache and other supporters of the tribe sued the government in federal court, arguing that the destruction of their worship site violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as well as an 1852 treaty that promised the United States would protect Apache land and secure the tribe's permanent prosperity.
If the Ninth Circuit rules in the Apache's favor, such a win would set a huge precedent for religious freedom protections under the First Amendment, especially as the Ninth Circuit deals with many religious freedom cases involving Native Americans because its jurisdiction covers the western U.S., Davis told The Federalist.
"What the government is asking for is effectively a blank check to destroy any Native American sacred site without having to give any reason whatsoever, and if you expand their logic, they can destroy any religious site."
It is quite telling that the federal government is all for trampling the religious freedom rights of the Apache to boost the bottom line of a foreign mining company - yet when American companies want to mine or drill, the Biden administration blocks their efforts over bogus environmental claims.
Religious freedom is not a priority for the Biden administration.
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