Apache tribe takes fight with feds over sacred land to Supreme Court

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The Apache tribe in Arizona is taking a fight with the federal government and copper producers to the Supreme Court, which they hope will protect what they say is their religious rights to sacred ground.

Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit group representing the tribe's interests, is fighting to preserve Oak Flat — what the Apaches say is their "direct corridor to the Creator and the locus of sacred ceremonies that cannot take place elsewhere."

According to the petition filed at the high court, the government "has long protected Apache rituals there."

"But because copper was discovered beneath Oak Flat, the government decided to transfer the site to Respondent Resolution Copper for a mine that will undisputedly destroy Oak Flat — swallowing it in a massive crater and ending sacred Apache rituals forever."

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Apache Stronghold argues that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Free Exercise Clause forbids the government to do so and are asking it to reverse a lower court decision.

"In a fractured en banc ruling cobbled together from two separate 6-5 majorities, the Ninth Circuit rejected both claims. Although the court acknowledged that destroying Oak Flat would 'literally prevent' the Apaches from engaging in religious exercise, it nevertheless concluded that doing