Court sides with butchers in beef over N.Y. kosher laws
By The Associated Press
05.22.02
NEW YORK — A federal appeals court yesterday agreed with a Brooklyn judge who struck down state statutes setting standards for kosher food on the grounds that they violate the First Amendment.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the laws improperly take sides in a religious matter, require the state to take an official position on religious doctrine and delegate civic authority to individuals apparently chosen according to religious criteria.
The ruling upheld an August 2000 decision by U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon in favor of two Long Island butchers who sued the state Department of Agriculture and Markets in 1996.
"Through these laws, the state has selected the views of one branch of Judaism ... to the exclusion of others," the appeals court wrote. "Moreover, the use of the state's enforcement authority to prevent labeling of food products that do not meet Orthodox Hebrew religious requirements as kosher confers a substantial benefit on Orthodox Jews and not on others."
The court said the kosher fraud laws actually inhibit religion by defining "kosher" as synonymous with the views of only Orthodox Judaism while prohibiting other branches of Judaism from using the kosher label in a way consistent with their dietary requirements.
Christine Pritchard, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, said Spitzer's office had just received the ruling and would be reviewing it. The attorney general had challenged the lower court ruling.