Free Exercise and the Nebraska Constitution

Thanks to Howard Friedman's excellent Religion Clause blog, I've learned that the Nebraska Supreme Court has finally resolved the legal question I discussed at length in my first major law review article (The Religion Provisions of the Nebraska Constitution: An Analysis and Litigation History) by ruling that the religious free exercise guarantee in the Nebraska Constitution should be interpreted identically with the Federal Constitution's Free Exercise Clause. It's not surprising, given that in previous cases the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that other guarantees in the state constitution were identical to that in the Federal Constitution, but it's a disappointing decision to advocates of strong religious freedom because the Federal guarantee is much weaker than the guarantee contained in many other state constitutions.

(http://religionclause.blogspot.com/2008/12/nebraska-high-court-rejects-free.html