Arizona Snowbowl and the Hopi Reservation
Over the weekend, the Wall St. Journal reported about a conflict between the Hopi people and a ski resort. At issue in this conflict is the plan from Arizona Snowbowl (the resort) to use recycled water to make artificial snow in an expansion into land that the Hopi and several other indigenous peoples believe to be sacred. What is interesting here is less that this is a possible church-and-state issue regarding religious rights. Rather, it is a conflict between two religions: the Hopi’s and American Civic Religion.
The Hopi object on two grounds: first, that the water originally proposed was non-potable sewage water; second, that making artificial snow is an affront to the sovereignty of Nature. Nature decides when it snows, not the manager of the ski resort. The response from the government has been in defense of that most sacred tenet of Civic Religion: the right of a business to operate and make money. To be sure, the American fervor in supporting the Church of the Almighty Dollar is rarely less intense than what could be found at a revival meeting.
What insights might we gain from asking the question about a conflict between religions rather than a conflict between a religion and a secular state? Wouldn’t the issue be different if it were two churches vying for the same plot of land for a sanctuary? What about the Temple Mount in Jerusalem?
While at Georgetown, I took a wonderful class “Caesar, God, and the Constitution” – all about the history of Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state. With a few unfortunate exceptions, I was very impressed with how consistently the Supreme Court has upheld the rights of free exercise for Jews, Muslims, even a congregation that practices Santeria. The principle of freedom of religion trumped possible inclinations against “the Other.” EXCEPT when the case involved the rights of Native Americans. In that situation, the Court has consistently ruled against Indigenous plaintiffs. I don’t know whether bias against Native Americans is just that much stronger, over the history of our country. Or perhaps because Native American spirituality is sufficiently different from what the justices recognize to be spirituality that they can’t recognize it. I think whenever land/resources are involved, the worship of Mammon will win.