Dear HCN,
The recent decision by
the Department of the Interior to approve the Fence Lake coal mine
is at the very least a travesty (HCN, 6/24/02: The Latest Bounce).
To put a place of such spiritual importance on the chopping block
in order to meet the selfish, short-term needs of Phoenix stands as
yet another maneuver by the government to undermine and erode the
religious base of American Indians.
To understand
the government’s thinking, one need only to look at the 1988
Supreme Court case Lyng vs. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective
Association. An excellent discussion of the larger issues related
to sacred lands can be found in Vine Deloria Jr.’s book,
For This Land. Deloria builds a very convincing argument
in the chapter “Sacred Lands and Religious
Freedom.”
Interior Secretary Gale Norton should
realize the hypocrisy in her Fence Lake decision, as it violates
the basic tenets of religious freedom. But then, we all know that
the right to express and practice one’s religion freely has been,
historically, very selective.
David
Rockwell
Suffield,
Connecticut
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Norton undermines religious freedom.
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