The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life offers resources for covering the UDV case.

Read the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the 1990 peyote case, Employment Division, Oregon Department of Human Resources v. Smith 494 U.S. 872.

Read about the legal status of peyote, including the 1993 federal statute that allowed members of the Native American Church to ingest peyote as part of religious ceremonies and state laws granting exemptions for Native Americans’ ceremonial use of peyote. The information is posted by the Peyote Foundation.

Read the First Amendment Center’s article on the free exercise clause, which includes a discussion of how Employment Division v. Smith, the 1990 peyote case, changed the legal precedent for religious groups whose practices conflict with state law.

Read the First Amendment Center’s resource page on Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal. It includes amicus briefs filed for both sides of the case.

The UDV religion in the United States has a website with resources for covering the case, including a FAQ and background links.

Read the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal.

Patricia Telesco is the co-author of Sacred Beat: From the Heart of the Drum Circle. She has been participating in drum circles for many years and lives in Amhearst, N.Y. Contact via Bonni Hamilton, director of publicity for Red Wheel/Weiser.

George E. Tinker is professor of American Indian cultures and religious traditions at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. His books include, as author, Missionary Conquest: The Gospel and Native American Cultural Genocide (Fortress Press, 1993) and Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation (Fortress Press, 2004); as co-author, A Native American Theology (Orbis Books, 2001); and, as co-editor, Native Voices: American […]