From the NYTs:

“It all began with an Indian who wanted to eat peyote.

“His name was Alfred Smith. He belonged to the Klamath tribe in Oregon and was a member of the North American Church, whose sacramental rites included ingesting peyote buds.

“On March 2, 1984, when he told his boss at the alcohol and drug treatment center where he worked that he would be attending a church meeting the following day, he was told that if he used peyote there he would be fired. He did, and he was.

“It’s a circuitous road from there to a federal appeals court ruling last week that the village of Mamaroneck had improperly denied an application by the Westchester Day School, an Orthodox Jewish school, for a new $12 million classroom building.

“Peyote or no peyote, land-use planning and zoning board decisions aren’t made for thrilling public debate — unless it’s your backyard that’s involved. But the path from the North American Church to the Orthodox day school does have an Alice in Wonderland quality. It has brought the federal government someplace it has almost never been — the realm of local land use, planning and zoning decisions.”

The Second Circuit’s opinion is here. Employment Division v. Smith is here.