ANDY –
Because when making laws to regulate industry – like slaughterhouses – legislators must keep in mind the rights of the people and must not knowingly contravene those rights. In this case, the right in question is Freedom of Religion (First Amendment), which generally allows people the right to practice their religions without govenment interference. Simply put, the government can regulate how Christians slaughter animals without worrying about a challenge on religious grounds, because Christianity does not require or even provide for slaughter by any specific means. But note that this is not truly regulating Christians differently per se; rather, it is having one set of regulations that apply to everyone, excepting out only those who can provide a religious reason to obtain an exemption.
Well, the competing interests here are the “concerns” (moral or otherwise) of society as a whole (generally collected under the term “public policy”) and the religious scruples of the individual. The U.S. Supreme Court has said:
Minersville School Dist. Bd. of Ed. v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, 594-595 (1940) (footnote omitted).
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that polygamy may be illegal, and persons practicing it may be criminally prosecuted therefor, even if the persons in question hold legitimate religious beliefs that polygamy is allowed or required. See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879). That is because the public policy in favor of traditional marriage and the interests of our society in upholding the law were held to outweigh the individual’s right to complete freedom of religious practice (as opposed to religious belief).
Similarly, a neutral law prohibiting animal cruelty would presumably survive constitutional scrutiny if it applied to everyone, regardless of religion. See, generally, Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993). And such a law arguably would survive constitutional scrutiny even if it violated the individual’s right to free religious practice so long as it furthered legitimate public policy (no cruelty to animals) and was neutral on its face and as applied (meaning, it applied to everyone, regardless of religion).
Therefore, if ANDY and friends could show that Halal and Shechita were inhumane and so constituted cruelty to animals, they could probably mount a pretty persuasive challenge to the continuing permitting of such practices, on the grounds that society’s interest in preventing unnecessary cruelty to animals outweighed the Jews’ and Muslims’ right to a particular relgious practice.
In point of fact, however, it would be very difficult to show that such practices are not humane – or at least as humane as the general industrial means of slaughter and assuming one believes any sort of violent or semi-violent death of an animal can ever been termed “humane.” The U.S. government considers the practices, when done correctly, to be humane:
7 USC sec. 1902. So the government assumes these practices are humane. If ANDY and friends wish to challenge the law, they must show they are not humane. Note that although the law mentions Judaism by name, it the law applies to everyone and therefore is facially neutral: It does not require one to be a Jew to slaughter in accordance with subsection (b); it only requires that the slaughtering be done in accordance with the ritual requirements of Judaism or some other religion and the carotid artery be instanteously severed. Therefore, even if one were a Christian, one could still slaughter animals in the the Jewish or Islamic (or Santerian) manner, so long as the provisions of this subsection were met.