Scalia was not a god, no matter how often he was right.
And, yes, I think it is one time (there may have been others) when Scalia hypocritically did what he said the Liberal activist judges were always wrongly doing - sticking a legal finger in the air to see which way the political winds were blowing.
The “Native American” religious practices were not part of nor contributing to the epidemic of illegal drugs at the time. The practices using peyote were far older than the “war on drugs” and had never been viewed in their own right as contributing to any spike in the use of illegal drugs, except in a minor fashion with some early sixties “hippie” interest which faded.
Now it is Catholic charities paying the price for the mixing of “constitutional” law with the legislative war on drugs.
Heck -- I'm not even sure they'd convince ME to vote on their side if I was a U.S. Supreme Court justice right now.
It would seem to me that the Smith case has no bearing here because that was predicated on the legal rights of individuals. This Philadelphia case seems to be an entirely different one because the city isn't necessarily denying the religious liberties of Catholic Social Services and its members. It's simply insisting on contractual terms with the City of Philadelphia that Catholic Social Services does not want to abide by.
The mere fact that CSS signed a contract with the City of Philadelphia -- and was presumably PAID for the organization's services -- is strong evidence that this is not a "religious freedom" case at all.
Catholic Social Services should simply sever all ties with the City of Philadelphia and facilitate its own adoptions and foster care arrangements however the hell it pleases.
You don't "render unto Caesar" by signing a contract with him ... and then demand that he "render unto God" when you don't like his terms. You never should have rendered this unto Caesar in the first place.
This is why you never see Amish plaintiffs in these landmark Supreme Court cases involving religious/cultural issues. Those people know damn well that the government is never to be trusted to uphold and protect their religious and moral principles.