SALT LAKE CITY – In 2024, the Utah Legislature handed SB150: Train of Faith Amendments. The passage of the invoice made Utah the thirty sixth state within the nation to undertake its personal model of the federal Non secular Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
Modeled after the federal regulation handed in 1993, Utah’s SB150 prohibits authorities entities from considerably burdening an individual’s free train of faith except the motion each furthers a compelling governmental curiosity and is the least restrictive technique of doing so. The 1993 Non secular Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is a U.S. federal regulation requiring the federal government to keep away from considerably burdening an individual’s free train of faith except it demonstrates a compelling curiosity pursued via the least restrictive means. It restored strict scrutiny for legal guidelines affecting non secular practices.
Nice Seal of the State of Utah. [public domain]
The unique textual content of the invoice raised a number of considerations from varied communities and in the end addressed a number of the criticism. LGBTQ+ advocates, for instance, lobbied lawmakers so as to add express safeguards to make sure it will not override Utah’s current civil rights and anti-discrimination protections, together with the state’s ban on conversion remedy.
“This invoice as drafted, would be the strongest RFRA regulation that exists within the nation,” mentioned Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, when the Home accepted it unanimously. Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, emphasised on the Senate flooring, “This isn’t a invoice for anyone church or anyone faith, it’s to codify in our code if the federal government is impeding on somebody’s sincerely-held non secular beliefs that they’re going to have to indicate and meet the very best constitutional normal to take action.”
Governor Spencer Cox signed SB150 on March 21, 2024, and it took impact Might 1, 2024. The laws’s intent is evident: to present Utahns a state-level safeguard for non secular liberty even when the federal RFRA have been ever repealed.
However inside months of turning into regulation, the state discovered itself on the heart of an uncommon authorized battle, one involving psychedelic mushrooms.
Final week, U.S. District Decide Jill Parrish issued a placing ruling in a case introduced by the Singularism Religious Middle, a small Provo-based religion group that comes with psilocybin, the psychoactive compound in sure mushrooms, into its non secular observe.
Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychoactive compound present in sure species of mushrooms, usually known as “magic mushrooms.” When ingested, the physique converts psilocybin right into a psychoactive metabolite that produces altered states of notion, temper, and thought. These results can embrace vivid visible imagery, non secular or mystical experiences, and adjustments within the sense of self.
Fruit our bodies of the hallucinogenic mushroom Psilocybe semilanceata [Photo Credit: Arp – CCA-SA 3.0]
In Native American non secular observe, psilocybin itself is mostly not the central conventional entheogen. Traditionally, many Native American nations, particularly within the Southwest and Nice Plains, have used peyote (containing mescaline) in sacred ceremonies, most notably via the Native American Church.
Different Indigenous teams, similar to some in Mesoamerica (e.g., the Mazatec, Mixtec, and Nahua peoples of Mexico), have used psilocybin-containing mushrooms ceremonially for hundreds of years, usually to speak with the spirit world, search therapeutic, and obtain steerage.
In these traditions, psilocybin is consumed beneath the steerage of an skilled non secular chief or healer, usually in a ritual setting that features prayers, songs, and symbolic acts. The intention is just not recreation however non secular perception, therapeutic, or connecting with divine beings or ancestors.
The middle’s founder, Bridger Jensen, opened the area in 2023, selling it as “Therapeutic. Secure. Authorized” and providing individuals, known as “voyagers,” psilocybin tea in a supervised, non-public setting. Jensen maintains that the tea is a sacrament central to the group’s non secular work, which he describes as an “entheogenic minority faith.”
Jensen grew up in Provo, Utah, inside a religious LDS (Latter-day Saints) household. He later explored spirituality throughout a number of non secular traditions and had formative psychedelic experiences overseas, together with with ayahuasca in Peru and Hawaii. There isn’t a obvious affirmation or proof that Jensen is Native American.
He did, nevertheless, discovered Singularism, a non secular perception system that embraces the ceremonial use of entheogenic substances like psilocybin to facilitate deep, profound non secular experiences, private perception, and therapeutic.
In November 2024, Provo police executed a search warrant on the heart, seizing psilocybin, associated information, which Jensen known as “sacred scripture,” and different supplies. No arrests have been made on the time, however Jensen was later charged with possession of psilocybin with intent to distribute, together with misdemeanor drug prices.
Jensen’s lawsuit, filed shortly after the raid, alleges violations of the First and Fourth Amendments, the Utah Structure, and Utah’s new RFRA.
The grievance argues that prohibiting Singularism from utilizing psilocybin “is just not important to furthering any compelling authorities curiosity” and that each U.S. and Utah courts have acknowledged conditions wherein the non secular use of entheogenic substances is a protected train. The swimsuit seeks to have the seized gadgets returned, the prison case dropped, and damages awarded for losses.
Utah County responded with a movement to dismiss, insisting that the First Modification doesn’t override the Utah Managed Substances Act and noting that the state RFRA is so new no court docket has but interpreted it. The movement argued the regulation presents “unsettled, never-before-addressed questions of state regulation.”
Decide Parrish was unpersuaded. In a sharply worded opinion, she described a number of the county’s arguments as “ludicrous” and bordering on “disingenuous.” She granted a preliminary injunction halting all prison proceedings towards Jensen and his religion neighborhood till the civil case is resolved.
“The prosecution has already brought about Singularism to lose lots of its practitioners and associates,” Parrish wrote. “Forcing Plaintiffs to attend till the conclusion of the prison proceedings to safe their free-exercise rights could be the equal of issuing a demise warrant for his or her nascent faith.”
Her ruling successfully signifies that one among SB150’s first courtroom assessments will proceed earlier than the regulation is even a 12 months outdated. It additionally locations Utah within the nationwide highlight as courts grapple with how far non secular freedom protections can prolong, particularly when a observe conflicts with state drug legal guidelines.
Religions utilizing banned substances usually are not new to Utah. Former Republican lawmaker Steve Urquhart based The Divine Meeting in 2020, which additionally facilities on psilocybin use. Native American church buildings within the state, such because the Oklevueha Native American Church, incorporate peyote or different entheogens into worship. Singularism’s case might decide whether or not Utah’s new RFRA can accommodate comparable practices.
For now, Jensen’s lawsuit will transfer ahead, elevating complicated questions on the place the strains between non secular liberty, public security, and managed substances regulation ought to be drawn. As Parrish famous in her opinion, the stakes are excessive: with out court docket safety, the group’s means to outlive as a religion neighborhood could possibly be extinguished earlier than it has an opportunity to completely assert its authorized rights.
Whether or not SB150 will protect Singularism’s psilocybin rites stays to be seen. What is evident is that Utah’s latest non secular freedom regulation is being delightfully examined in methods lawmakers might not have anticipated.
