On the recordJuly 27, 2000
The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act is a bill designed to protect the free exercise of religion from unnecessary governmental interference. The legislation uses the recognized constitutional authority of the Congress to protect one of the most fundamental aspects of religious freedom, the right to gather and worship, and to protect the religious exercise of a class of people particularly vulnerable to government regulation, and that is institutionalized persons. While this bill does not fill the gap in the legal protections available to people of faith in every circumstance, it will provide critical protection in two important areas where the right to religious exercise is frequently infringed. This does not solve all of the problems that we had attempted to solve with the legislation that the House previously passed, but this is a very important step forward in the protection of religious liberty for all Americans.
Source
govinfo.gov
