Categorical Protection, Limited Domain: The Texas Supreme Court Defines the Reach of the Religious Services Clause

I. Introduction

In Gary Perez and Matilde Torres v. City of San Antonio, the Supreme Court of Texas issued the first authoritative construction of the State’s newly adopted “Religious Services Clause,” Article I, § 6-a of the Texas Constitution. The case arrives on a certified question from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and arises from a dispute between members of the Lipan-Apache Native American Church and the City of San Antonio over planned changes to Brackenridge Park’s Lambert Beach area.

The core constitutional question is deceptively simple: does Article I, § 6-a create a categorical bar on any governmental limitation of “religious services,” or does it merely restate the more familiar strict scrutiny regime that already governs religious freedom claims under the First Amendment, the Texas Constitution’s Freedom of Worship Clause, and the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act (Texas RFRA)?

Justice Boyd, writing for the Court, answers that question in a two-part framework:

• Force: When Article I, § 6-a applies, it categorically forbids governmental prohibitions or limitations on religious services. No balancing against even compelling governmental interests is permitted.
• Scope: The Clause’s reach is not unlimited. Most importantly for this case, the Court holds that § 6-a does not extend to “governmental actions for the preservation and management of public lands.”

This commentary unpacks the opinion’s reasoning, the precedents it invokes, and the significant implications this new Texas constitutional doctrine will have on religious liberty, emergency powers, and the use of public land.

II. Factual and Procedural Background

A. The parties and the sacred site

Appellants Gary Perez and Matilde Torres are members of the Lipan-Apache Native American Church. Their religious beliefs center on a “Sacred Area” in Brackenridge Park, along a bend of the San Antonio River historically known as Yanaguana. Their theology teaches that:

• Life began at a spring along the river (the “Blue Hole”).
• A spirit in the form of a blue panther resided in the Blue Hole.
• A cormorant-spirit, startled by the panther, fled and dropped water that generated life along the river valley.
• A particular river bend, mirroring the constellation Eridanus, is a sacred “connection between the physical and spiritual worlds.”

Within this bend lies a small “Sacred Area” (about 20 by 30 feet) among cypress trees on the south bank. Church members must conduct religious ceremonies there at specific times, facing north to observe both the cypress trees and the cormorants that nest and fly in what they describe as the “spiritual ecology.”

Historical and archaeological evidence indicates that Indigenous religious ceremonies have occurred at or near this site for thousands of years. Perez has led ceremonies there for at least twenty-five years; Torres has participated there for at least ten. The sincerity of their religious beliefs is uncontested.

B. Brackenridge Park and the City’s improvement plan

Brackenridge Park is a sprawling, historic public park owned and operated by the City of San Antonio. It includes:

• Picnic areas, trails, and sports facilities
• A zoo, tea garden, theater, golf course, and museum
• Lambert Beach, a public recreation area at the river bend near the Sacred Area, constructed over a century ago

Over time, retaining walls in the area have eroded, trees have weakened, and bird excrement (notably from cormorants) has created what the City calls health and safety issues. Voters in 2016 approved a bond package including nearly $8 million for improvements. The City’s plan for Lambert Beach includes:

• Repairing or rebuilding retaining walls
• Removing and replacing most of the trees in the area
• Deterring migratory birds—including cormorants—from nesting nearby

Multiple governmental bodies must approve and permit these changes. The parties dispute:

• How necessary the measures are for health and safety
• How far the City has gone, or must go, to accommodate the Church’s religious practices

C. The litigation and certified question

In 2023, a retaining wall failed and a large tree branch fell near the Sacred Area. The City temporarily blocked public access to the area. Perez sued the City in federal district court. The court:

• Ordered the City to remove the branch and restore access for religious ceremonies (immediate relief)
• But declined to enjoin the broader tree-removal and bird-deterrence aspects of the improvement plan

Perez invoked four distinct sources of protection:

1. The First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause
2. Article I, § 6 of the Texas Constitution (Freedom of Worship Clause)
3. The Texas RFRA (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 110)
4. The new Texas Religious Services Clause, Article I, § 6-a

He sought injunctive relief requiring the City to:

• Minimize tree removal in or near the Sacred Area
• Allow cormorants to continue nesting there
• Modify the improvement plan generally to accommodate his Church’s religious-service requirements

The district court partially granted a preliminary injunction (limited access for certain ceremonies) but refused to halt the park-improvement plan. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit initially rejected all of Perez’s claims and held that he had not adequately briefed his § 6-a claim. On rehearing, the court withdrew its opinion and certified a pure question of state constitutional law to the Texas Supreme Court:

Does the “Religious Service Protections” provision of the Constitution of the State of Texas—as expressed in Article 1, Section 6-a—impose a categorical bar on any limitation of any religious service, regardless of the sort of limitation and the government’s interest in that limitation?

The Texas Supreme Court accepted the question, received briefs from the parties and several amici, heard oral argument, and issued the opinion analyzed here.

III. Summary of the Texas Supreme Court’s Opinion

The Court’s answer is carefully bifurcated:

1. Force of the Clause: When Article I, § 6-a applies, its protection is absolute and categorical. Government “may not” prohibit or limit religious services, and that prohibition is not conditioned on any “compelling interest” or “least restrictive means” analysis. In other words, the Clause does not incorporate strict scrutiny; it forbids balancing altogether.
2. Scope of the Clause: The Clause’s domain is limited. It does not reach all laws or actions that might, in some sense, make religious services harder. Most importantly for this case, the Court holds that § 6-a does not extend to governmental actions for the preservation and management of public lands. Decisions about tree removal, bird control, and infrastructure maintenance in a public park fall outside the Clause’s protection, even if they diminish natural features important to a religious group’s ceremonies.

The Court thus gives § 6-a very strong effect within a carefully cabined sphere. It does not decide Perez’s federal Free Exercise or Texas RFRA claims; those remain for the federal courts.

IV. The Court’s Interpretive Framework

A. Original public meaning and constitutional text

Justice Boyd reiterates the Court’s standard approach to state constitutional interpretation, drawing on cases such as:

• Hogan v. Southern Methodist University, 688 S.W.3d 852 (Tex. 2024)
• In re Abbott, 628 S.W.3d 288 (Tex. 2021)
• In re Dallas County, 697 S.W.3d 142 (Tex. 2024)
• Harris County Hosp. Dist. v. Tomball Reg’l Hosp., 283 S.W.3d 838 (Tex. 2009)
• Degan v. Board of Trustees, 594 S.W.3d 309 (Tex. 2020)
• Travelers’ Ins. Co. v. Marshall, 76 S.W.2d 1007 (Tex. 1934)

From these precedents, several key interpretive principles emerge:

• Original meaning is fixed at adoption. As Marshall put it, “The meaning which a constitutional provision had when adopted, it has to-day.” Later conditions may change the provision’s practical applications, but not its meaning.
• Text, linguistic context, and historical context all matter. The Court resists “hyper-technical readings of isolated words or phrases” and insists on reading the provision “as a whole,” alongside related constitutional text and in light of the “history of the legislation, the conditions and spirit of the times, the prevailing sentiments of the people, the evils intended to be remedied, and the good to be accomplished.”
• Legislative history is treated differently in constitutional and statutory cases. In statutory interpretation, the Court is famously skeptical of legislative history. By contrast, for constitutional provisions, the records and statements surrounding proposal and ratification can be probative of how the ratifying public would have understood the language. Legislative explanations, voter-information materials, and public debates are thus considered, though they cannot override clear text (In re Allcat Claims Serv.).
• Redundancy is disfavored. A new constitutional provision should not be construed as mere surplusage. It must be given an “independent meaning and operative effect” (Doody v. Ameriquest Mortg. Co.).

B. The text of Article I, § 6-a

Article I, § 6-a provides:

This state or a political subdivision of this state may not enact, adopt, or issue a statute, order, proclamation, decision, or rule that prohibits or limits religious services, including religious services conducted in churches, congregations, and places of worship, in this state by a religious organization established to support and serve the propagation of a sincerely held religious belief.

This text yields two analytically distinct questions:

1. Force: What is the strength of the prohibition when it applies? Does “may not” mean absolutely may not, or may not unless strict scrutiny is satisfied?
2. Scope: What types of government actions, and what kinds of burdens on religious practice, fall within the phrase “prohibits or limits religious services”?

The certified question from the Fifth Circuit was framed in a way that implicitly raised both sub-questions. The Texas Supreme Court thus addresses them separately and in detail.

V. The “Force” of the Religious Services Clause: A Categorical Bar

A. Textual analysis: “may not” without qualification

The Court starts with the straightforward language: government “may not” issue a law or decision that “prohibits or limits” religious services. Unlike many other constitutional or statutory provisions, § 6-a contains no qualifying language such as “unless,” “except,” or “subject to” a compelling-interest test.

By contrast:

• Numerous Texas constitutional provisions say “may not … unless/until/except” in specific circumstances (e.g., bond limits, tax levies, appropriations).
• The Texas RFRA explicitly states that government “may not substantially burden” religious exercise unless it satisfies a compelling-interest and least-restrictive-means test.

The omission of similar qualifiers from § 6-a is treated as deliberate. The Court therefore reads “may not” as a direct, unqualified prohibition.

B. Linguistic context: Why strict scrutiny cannot be imported

The City argued that, as a matter of constitutional structure, every right must admit some exceptions and that courts have traditionally implemented this through strict scrutiny: laws burdening certain rights are permissible only if narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest (Sherbert v. Verner; City of Boerne v. Flores).

The Court acknowledges that:

• Federal Free Exercise jurisprudence recognizes strict scrutiny for certain types of burdens (particularly those targeting religion or treating it worse than comparable secular conduct).
• Texas has treated the Freedom of Worship Clause (Art. I, § 6) largely as coextensive with the federal Free Exercise Clause in prior cases (HEB Ministries, Tilton v. Marshall), assuming strict scrutiny applies.
• The Texas RFRA statutorily codifies strict scrutiny for any “substantial burden” on the free exercise of religion.

But if § 6-a were also subject to strict scrutiny, it would add little to existing protections. The same governmental actions that would be invalid under § 6-a would also be invalid, in most serious cases, under the Free Exercise Clause, the Freedom of Worship Clause, or Texas RFRA. That would make § 6-a largely redundant—contrary to the presumption that new constitutional provisions do meaningful work.

Thus, the Court reasons:

• Because the Constitution already contains provisions that function via balancing (strict scrutiny),
• And because § 6-a was adopted afterwards in response to perceived insufficiency of those protections during COVID-19,
• It should be read as adding a distinct and stronger tier of protection—not merely replicating strict scrutiny under a new label.

C. Historical context: the COVID-19 pandemic and Proposition 3

The legislative and social history surrounding § 6-a is central to the Court’s analysis. The amendment arose from widespread dissatisfaction with COVID-era restrictions on religious services. The opinion emphasizes:

• 2020–2021 pandemic responses included extensive “lockdown” and “social distancing” orders, often described as the “greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country” (Justice Gorsuch in Arizona v. Mayorkas).
• Many jurisdictions imposed:
  • Complete bans on in-person religious services
  • Limits on group size (e.g., 10 people)
  • Prohibitions on particular religious activities (singing, chanting, communion)
  • Household-only gathering rules
• At the same time, numerous secular businesses and activities were deemed “essential” and allowed to operate—sometimes including liquor stores, casinos, and other businesses, while churches were closed (Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley; Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn; Tandon v. Newsom).

In Texas:

• Many restrictive orders came from local governments (cities and counties).
• The Governor eventually designated “religious services conducted in churches, congregations, and houses of worship” as “essential services” in an executive order (GA-14), thereby protecting them from some local shutdown measures.
• The Legislature also enacted Government Code chapter 2401, declaring religious organizations “essential businesses” and prohibiting certain disaster-related closures of their activities.

The Legislature then proposed Senate Joint Resolution 27, which became Article I, § 6-a. The Court relies heavily on:

• Legislative explanations, including House and Senate debates and committee discussions.
• Voter guides, such as the Legislative Council’s “Analyses of Proposed Constitutional Amendments.”
• Public commentary, including a Houston Chronicle editorial opposing the amendment precisely because it would allow “no state interests [to] ever justify limiting religious services.”

This history shows that:

• Proponents wanted to prevent future “shutdowns” or capacity caps on religious services, even during emergencies.
• Opponents critiqued the proposal because it would be categorical—for example, warning that, if passed, the government “could never restrict capacity in a church service for any reason.”
• A proposed amendment inserting classic strict-scrutiny language (“narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest”) was expressly considered and rejected, with the House sponsor saying there was “a reason we have left that language out.”

Taken together, this legislative and public record strongly supports the Court’s conclusion that the ratifying public understood § 6-a to be more absolute than the existing free-exercise framework.

D. Response to the Establishment Clause concern

The City argued that a categorical rule could push Texas into violating the federal Establishment Clause by forcing preferential treatment of religious interests over compelling secular interests or other faith communities. The Court responds by:

• Invoking Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin LIRC (2025), which reaffirms that explicit denominational discrimination is unconstitutional—but clarifying that § 6-a does not authorize any such denominational preference.
• Noting that facially neutral laws with disparate impact on different religious groups are permissible under Larson v. Valente and related precedent, so long as they are not denominationally targeted.
• Characterizing the City’s worry as a question about the scope of § 6-a (what it applies to), not its force once applicable.

Thus the Court rejects importing strict scrutiny into § 6-a out of Establishment Clause concerns and instead uses scope limitation (e.g., the public-lands carveout) as the mechanism to avoid potential conflicts.

E. The bottom line on force

The Court’s holding on the Clause’s force is unequivocal:

[W]hen [the Religious Services Clause] applies, it categorically bars a governmental prohibition or limitation on religious services without regard to whether it passes strict scrutiny or any other test that balances the right against the government’s interests.

Put simply: within its domain, Article I, § 6-a is an absolute bar, not a balancing test.

VI. The “Scope” of the Clause: What Counts as a Prohibited or Limited “Religious Service”?

A. The danger of deciding too much on a certified question

The Court is notably cautious about defining the full scope of § 6-a in this first case. It highlights the structural risks of certified questions:

• They do not come through the normal state appellate pipeline.
• They often arrive with limited factual development on state-law nuances.
• The Texas Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over them is special and limited (Tex. Const. art. V, § 3-c).

Although the Fifth Circuit often invites the Court not to feel bound by the precise framing of the question, the Texas Supreme Court insists it will not indulge in broad, abstract pronouncements. It answers only what is necessary to give “helpful” guidance on the specific dispute at hand.

B. Five clear textual limitations on scope

The Court draws first from the text itself, identifying five explicit limiting elements:

1. Government actor: The Clause applies only to “this state or a political subdivision of this state.” Private actors are not bound by § 6-a (though their conduct may implicate other legal rules).
2. Type of action: It applies only to enactment, adoption, or issuance of a “statute, order, proclamation, decision, or rule.” Not every governmental act is covered, at least not directly; this language suggests a focus on formal or at least authoritative legal directives.
3. Subject matter: It protects “religious services,” not the entire spectrum of “free exercise of religion.” The text mentions services “including” those conducted in churches, congregations, and places of worship—non-exclusive examples intended to cover common forms of worship gatherings.
4. Who is protected: The services must be conducted “by a religious organization established to support and serve the propagation of a sincerely held religious belief.” This language suggests that individuals acting wholly on their own, outside any religious “organization,” may not be covered by § 6-a, though they retain protection under other provisions.
5. Degree of impact: The governmental action must “prohibit or limit” religious services. Mere inconvenience, cost, or indirect effect may not suffice; something akin to denial or restriction of the service itself is required.

Most of these elements are not disputed in this case. The main controversies concern the fifth: what counts as “prohibiting or limiting” a religious service.

C. Competing theories of scope and the Court’s responses

1. City’s “unequal treatment” theory

The City argued that § 6-a is essentially an equal-treatment provision: it requires government to treat religious services at least as favorably as comparable secular activities, but does not forbid generally applicable restrictions that burden religious services and secular activities equally.

This position draws on:

• The historical grievance that churches were treated less favorably than “essential” businesses during COVID.
• U.S. Supreme Court cases such as Tandon v. Newsom, which hold under the federal Free Exercise Clause that government regulations are not “neutral and generally applicable” if they treat comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise.

The Texas Supreme Court rejects this reading as too narrow:

• The text of § 6-a nowhere mentions comparison to secular activity or “essential” status.
• The historical context showed that the amendment also responded to indiscriminate gathering bans (e.g., Travis County’s order prohibiting all community gatherings, including religious services). Those would be unconstitutional under § 6-a even though they treated secular and religious gatherings equally.

Thus, equal treatment is necessary but not sufficient to satisfy § 6-a. The Clause invalidates even neutral, across-the-board shutdowns of religious services.

2. State’s “gathering-only” theory

The State, as amicus, argued that § 6-a protects only the ability to gather for religious services—i.e., whether people can assemble in person at all. It does not protect specific worship practices once people are gathered. On this view, bans on singing or communion would not be within the Clause’s scope.

The Court finds this approach inconsistent with both the text and history:

• The statutory examples (“services conducted in churches, congregations, and places of worship”) speak to the function of the services, not merely their in-person nature.
• Legislative debates explicitly referenced singing bans as part of the perceived problem; the Senate sponsor, for instance, described governmental efforts to “prohibit singing in places of worship” as a key abuse prompting the amendment.
• House sponsors spoke of protecting both the right to “assemble” and to “worship,” suggesting conduct within the service is covered.

The Court therefore holds that § 6-a covers not only physical gathering but also “acts of worship which inherently comprise religious services.”

3. Perez’s “background-principles” limitation

Perez, though advocating for strong protection, conceded that § 6-a cannot reach every conceivable practice labeled a “religious service.” He proposed limiting the scope to practices not already forbidden by “long-existing background principles of law.” Examples:

• Religious services cannot override immediate emergency responses (e.g., firefighters clearing a burning building).
• They cannot legalize trespass or nuisance on private property.
• They cannot immunize criminal acts (e.g., human sacrifice) or keep dangerous offenders out of prison.
• They cannot wholly displace other users’ rights in public property (e.g., exclusive appropriation of public spaces).

Perez analogized to other contexts where constitutional rights are limited by longstanding legal principles:

• The right to work does not include occupations that are “inherently vicious and harmful” (Tex. Dep’t of State Health Servs. v. Crown Distrib. LLC, quoting Murphy v. California).
• The Free Exercise Clause does not grant churches immunity for tortious conduct (Pleasant Glade Assembly of God v. Schubert).

The Court views this as directionally plausible but ultimately too amorphous:

• It lacks clear textual anchoring; § 6-a does not explicitly incorporate “background principles” as a limiting concept.
• Leaving the scope to “longstanding interpretive principles” invites future case-by-case dilution of the Clause by government actors and courts.
• It undermines the ratifiers’ effort to fix a determinate, voter-approved rule rather than defer to evolving judicial judgments about competing policy interests.

The Court thus declines to endorse this general test, although it does not reject the specific examples as necessarily wrong in future cases.

D. What the Court does affirmatively say about scope

Despite its caution, the Court does offer some positive guidance about the kinds of actions § 6-a plainly covers (beyond the present case):

• Shutdown orders: Government may not issue orders that forbid people from gathering for religious services, as many COVID-era orders did.
• Capacity caps and relationship limits: Government may not limit the number of participants in a religious service, or restrict attendance based on household or relational status.
• Content-based worship restrictions: Government may not regulate particular aspects of worship during services—such as bans on singing, chanting, or sharing communion—if done as such rather than as part of neutral, generally applicable safety regulations that might fall outside the Clause’s scope.

In addition, the Court emphasizes that § 6-a does not displace or duplicate all other religious liberty protections. It supplements:

• The Free Exercise Clause of the U.S. Constitution
• Article I, § 6 (Freedom of Worship) of the Texas Constitution
• The Texas RFRA

Thus, burdens on religious exercise that do not involve “religious services” (e.g., licensing of religious schools, religious hiring policies, conscience-based refusals outside a formal “service”) remain governed by those other frameworks, typically under a strict-scrutiny or comparable analysis.

VII. The Public Lands Carveout: Why Brackenridge Park Is Outside § 6-a

A. Framing the specific problem

Having defined the Clause’s force and some aspects of its scope, the Court turns to the concrete question suggested by the case: does § 6-a apply to government decisions about how to manage and preserve public land, even when those decisions incidentally impair religious groups’ ability to conduct services in their preferred manner at a particular location?

In Brackenridge Park:

• The City does not bar the Church from gathering.
• It does not regulate what worship practices are allowed within services (no direct bans on rituals, chanting, orientation, etc.).
• Rather, it plans to change the natural and structural features of the park—removing some trees, repairing infrastructure, and deterring certain birds.

These changes would, from the Church’s perspective, destroy or severely degrade the “spiritual ecology” upon which their ceremonies depend. They characterize the trees and cormorants as “necessary components” of their religious services.

B. The Court’s reasoning: § 6-a does not freeze public lands

The Court holds that, as a matter of scope, § 6-a does not extend to governmental actions “for the preservation and management of public lands.” Key points:

• The Clause was adopted to respond to regulatory restrictions on religious gatherings and worship practices (shutdowns, capacity caps, worship bans), not to transfer effective control over public property to religious organizations.
• The City, as owner and steward of the park, must manage it for all users—balancing public safety, environmental protection, and access. It cannot be forced, under § 6-a, to maintain the land in a religiously optimal configuration.
• Nothing in § 6-a's text purports to:
  • Freeze the natural environment at a given moment,
  • Require the government to maintain or provide specific natural features (trees, bird populations), or
  • Prevent ordinary infrastructure maintenance or ecological management.
• Religious groups are not entitled under § 6-a to prevent the government from:
  • Selling public land (even sacred sites) to private parties
  • Taking steps necessary to ensure equal public access and safety
  • Responding to environmental degradation or hazards

Thus, while the City must not, under § 6-a, target religious services for withdrawal of access or special burdens, it retains authority to manage the land itself—even if some religious groups are deeply affected in their worship.

C. Relationship to Lyng and Apache Stronghold

The Court references two U.S. Supreme Court / federal appellate decisions to illustrate, but not directly dictate, its approach:

1. Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Ass’n, 485 U.S. 439 (1988)
2. Apache Stronghold v. United States, 101 F.4th 1036 (9th Cir. 2024) (en banc), cert. denied, 2025

In Lyng, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld federal plans to build a road and harvest timber on public land next to sacred Indigenous sites, despite findings that such development would cause “irreparable damage” to religious practices. The Court reasoned that:

• The government must be free to use its land and cannot be required to satisfy every citizen’s religious needs.
• Accommodating the asserted religious interests would effectively grant Indigenous plaintiffs “de facto beneficial ownership” of large tracts of public land, which is incompatible with normal land-use authority.

In Apache Stronghold, the Ninth Circuit extended that logic to the federal RFRA, holding that the planned transfer of Oak Flat (a sacred Indigenous site) for copper mining was not a “substantial burden” under RFRA, largely because it did not “coerce” believers into acting contrary to their beliefs or penalize religious practice as such.

The Texas Supreme Court carefully avoids endorsing or rejecting the Lyng/Apache Stronghold doctrine as a matter of Texas law. It notes only that § 6-a:

• Does not expressly speak to public-land management issues, and
• Was adopted in a very different context (COVID restrictions) than the sacred-sites controversies at issue in those federal cases.

The Court therefore concludes that, based on its text and COVID-focused history, § 6-a should not be construed to cover “limitations” on religious services arising from the State’s preservation and maintenance of public lands, even when those limitations are severe from the perspective of a religious group.

D. Certified-question restraint

Importantly, the Court emphasizes that:

• It expresses no view on whether federal Free Exercise law or Texas RFRA might offer relief in similar situations.
• Its holding is confined to § 6-a and to the specific type of governmental action at issue: land management in a public park.
• Applying the Court’s answer to the facts of the Perez case is the Fifth Circuit’s task, not the Texas Supreme Court’s; Texas merely answers the state-law question.

The public-lands carveout thus marks the outer boundary of § 6-a for this case, leaving many other potential applications to future litigation.

VIII. Simplifying Key Legal Concepts

A. Strict scrutiny vs. categorical rules

Much of the opinion turns on the difference between:

• Strict scrutiny: A demanding balancing test. Governmental action that burdens a right is allowed if the government proves:
  1. It serves a compelling interest (something of the highest importance, like preventing mass death or national security threats), and
  2. It is narrowly tailored (no more restrictive than necessary; no less-burdensome alternative would achieve the same goal).
• Categorical prohibition: No balancing. If the government action falls within the provision’s scope, it is flatly forbidden regardless of how compelling the government’s interests may be. Classic examples are absolute bans on certain types of punishment or particular kinds of prior restraints.

Before § 6-a, Texas religious liberty doctrine was almost entirely strict-scrutiny-based (outside of neutral, generally applicable laws upheld under Employment Division v. Smith-style reasoning at the federal level). Article I, § 6-a introduces a genuinely categorical element—but only in a defined domain (religious services).

B. “Force” vs. “scope” of a constitutional right

The Court’s distinction between force and scope is conceptually important:

• Force: How strong is the right once we know it applies?
  • If strict scrutiny applies, the right is strong but not absolute.
  • If a categorical rule applies, the right is absolute within its domain.
• Scope: When does the right apply at all?
  • Does it cover only “religious services” or all religiously motivated conduct?
  • Does it include only direct regulation (closures, bans) or also incidental effects (changing the environment)?
  • Does it apply to public-land management decisions?

The Court holds that § 6-a has maximum force (categorical) but a limited scope (it doesn’t cover everything that impacts religion, and specifically excludes public-lands management).

C. Certified question procedure

A “certified question” is a mechanism of cooperative federalism. When a federal appellate court encounters a determinative question of state law with no controlling precedent, it may “certify” that question to the state’s highest court. The state court:

• Does not decide the whole case.
• Answers only the question of state law.
• Leaves application of that answer to the facts—and any remaining federal-law issues—to the federal court.

Here, the Fifth Circuit asked only about the meaning of Article I, § 6-a. The Texas Supreme Court therefore:

• Did not decide whether Perez is entitled to relief under the U.S. Constitution or Texas RFRA.
• Did not enjoin the park project or grant any remedy.
• Simply articulated what § 6-a means and, importantly, what it does not reach.

D. The Texas religious-liberty framework in layers

Texas now has four distinct layers of protection for religious exercise:

1. U.S. Constitution, First Amendment, Free Exercise Clause
   • Applies to all states via incorporation.
   • Protects religious exercise, especially against laws that target religion or treat it worse than comparable secular activities.
   • Typically implemented via strict scrutiny in those targeted cases.
2. Texas Constitution, Article I, § 6 (Freedom of Worship)
   • “All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences.”
   • Historically treated as coextensive with federal Free Exercise in scope and force, in the absence of arguments for divergence.
3. Texas RFRA (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 110)
   • Statutory protection against any governmental action that “substantially burdens” a person’s free exercise of religion.
   • Explicitly subject to strict scrutiny (compelling interest, least restrictive means).
4. Texas Constitution, Article I, § 6-a (Religious Services Clause)
   • New, 2021 amendment.
   • Applies only to “religious services” conducted by qualifying religious organizations.
   • If it applies, it is categorical: government “may not” prohibit or limit such services.
   • But its scope is narrowed by text, context, and now by the Court’s explicit exclusion of public-lands management.

Understanding which layer applies, and with what doctrinal test, will be crucial in future Texas litigation.

IX. Precedents and Their Influence

A. Texas interpretive and structural cases

Beyond those already mentioned, several Texas decisions shape the opinion’s approach:

• Amberboy v. Societe de Banque Privee, 831 S.W.2d 793 (Tex. 1992): Endorses certification as a tool for cooperative federalism and emphasizes the value of state court resolution of novel state-law issues.
• Silguero v. CSL Plasma, Inc., 579 S.W.3d 53 (Tex. 2019): Clarifies that the Court’s role is to answer the certified question in a way that is helpful yet confined.
• Janvey v. GMAG, L.L.C., 592 S.W.3d 125 (Tex. 2019): Illustrates that the Court sometimes must address whether a party in the underlying case has a right at all in order to answer a certified question meaningfully.
• Mid-Continent Ins. Co. v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co., 236 S.W.3d 765 (Tex. 2007); Moreno v. Sterling Drug, Inc., 787 S.W.2d 348 (Tex. 1990): Similarly show that an answer about abstract legal rights may necessarily determine that certain asserted claims fail as a matter of law.

These cases underpin the Court’s insistence that:

• It is appropriate, and often necessary, to say “this constitutional provision does not protect this asserted interest.”
• But broader doctrinal expansions should be left for cases where those issues are squarely and fully presented through Texas courts.

B. Free exercise and COVID-19 cases

The opinion situates § 6-a firmly within the modern free-exercise battles over COVID restrictions, referencing:

• South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom (“South Bay I” and “South Bay II”)
• Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley v. Sisolak
• Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo
• Maryville Baptist Church, Inc. v. Beshear
• Tandon v. Newsom
• Gish v. Newsom; Cross Culture Christian Ctr. v. Newsom

These cases:

• Show the U.S. Supreme Court’s evolving concern about unequal treatment of religious exercise versus secular activities.
• Demonstrate the range of restrictions imposed on worship—complete closures, capacity limits, bans on specific practices like singing or chanting.
• Provide the backdrop against which Texas voters decided to adopt § 6-a, specifically to prevent similar treatment in the future.

C. Establishment Clause and denominational neutrality

The Court invokes:

• Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin LIRC (2025): Reinforces the rule that laws cannot differentiate between religions based on theology without violating the Establishment Clause.
• Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228 (1982): Prohibits denominational preferences and requires any such laws to meet the strictest scrutiny.

These cases are used to:

• Reassure that § 6-a does not authorize preferential treatment of specific denominations.
• Clarify that neutral land-use decisions that incidentally affect some religions more than others (e.g., Indigenous sacred sites on public lands) do not constitute denominational discrimination.

D. Public-forum and land-use doctrine

Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization, 307 U.S. 496 (1939), is cited to illustrate:

• Public parks are traditionally held in trust for use by the public.
• However, rights to use these spaces are not absolute and must yield to reasonable regulation for the “general comfort and convenience” and public order.

This case informs the Court’s view that:

• The city must allow equal access to public land.
• But it is not required to preserve the land in any particular natural configuration to facilitate specific religious ceremonies.

X. Impact and Future Implications

A. Emergency powers and public health regulation

Perhaps the most immediate effect of this decision is on Texas’s ability to respond to future pandemics or similar emergencies:

• No shutdown of religious services: State and local officials cannot close houses of worship or prohibit in-person religious services under § 6-a, even for compelling public health reasons, unless such actions are outside the Clause’s scope (e.g., perhaps if a specific building is structurally unsafe under neutral codes, an issue the Court leaves open).
• No capacity caps for religious services: Any attempt to cap attendance at religious services—regardless of whether comparable secular venues are capped—would appear to be categorically forbidden.
• No bans on specific worship acts during services: Targeted prohibitions on singing, chanting, sacramental practices, or other elements of worship within a service are likely covered, given the Court’s reading of the legislative history.

Government remains free, of course, to:

• Issue recommendations rather than mandates.
• Apply neutral safety rules that may fall outside § 6-a’s scope (e.g., fire code maximum occupancy, structural closures)—though how far this extends will be litigated.
• Rely on non-§ 6-a doctrines (e.g., Texas RFRA, federal Free Exercise) as independent grounds for regulation, subject to strict scrutiny, in areas not covered by “religious services.”

B. Public land, Indigenous religions, and sacred sites

For Indigenous and land-based spiritual traditions, the decision is sobering:

• The Court’s express carveout for “preservation and management of public lands” sharply limits the usefulness of § 6-a in challenging government actions that:
  • Alter sacred natural features (trees, springs, rock formations)
  • Permit resource extraction (mining, drilling) at sacred sites
  • Transfer sacred lands to private entities
• Claims like those in Lyng or Apache Stronghold would not, in general, find a home under § 6-a, even if the land is used for religious services and the impact is devastating to religious practice.
• Indigenous groups will instead need to rely on:
  • Texas RFRA (arguing a “substantial burden” under a more protective standard than used by the Ninth Circuit),
  • Federal RFRA (when federal action is involved), and
  • Federal constitutional claims (recognizing the limitations of current federal sacred-sites doctrine).

In effect, § 6-a provides robust structural protection for church-centric, building-based worship paradigms while offering far less to traditions whose sacred spaces are embedded in publicly owned natural landscapes.

C. Municipal governance, zoning, and safety regulation

Local governments must now navigate a more complex religious-liberty landscape:

• What is clearly forbidden under § 6-a:
  • Emergency orders closing religious services or capping attendance.
  • Zoning or permitting rules that, by their terms, prohibit or limit religious services (e.g., “no religious services in this district”), absent some argument that such decisions fall outside § 6-a’s scope.
• What is likely outside § 6-a, but still subject to other laws:
  • Neutral, generally applicable fire and building-safety codes.
  • Temporary closures of specific unsafe buildings (e.g., structural defects), if applied without religious targeting.
  • Standard time-place-manner rules for noise, traffic, etc., where they do not amount to a prohibition or material limitation on services.
• What is now clearly outside § 6-a:
  • Decisions about how to maintain and modify public land (e.g., tree removal, wildlife management, park redesign), even if those decisions incidentally undermine or foreclose religious ceremonies at a particular site.

Nevertheless, governments must still consider:

• Equal-treatment requirements under the Free Exercise Clause and Texas RFRA.
• Reasonable accommodation principles, as a matter of policy and to avoid other forms of liability.
• Political and community-relations implications of decisions affecting well-established religious use of public land.

D. Litigation strategy and doctrinal development

For litigants and counsel:

• Careful pleading is essential. Claims should clearly distinguish between:
  • “Religious services” claims under § 6-a (categorical protection, but limited scope), and
  • Broader “free exercise” claims under Art. I, § 6, Texas RFRA, and the federal Constitution (strict scrutiny or other applicable tests).
• Factual framing matters. Characterizing government action as a “closure” or “capacity restriction” on religious services, as opposed to a land-management decision or neutral safety enforcement, may determine whether § 6-a applies.
• Expect future litigation on unresolved issues, such as:
  • Does a general curfew that incidentally prevents evening church services “limit” religious services within § 6-a’s meaning?
  • Do noise ordinances barring amplified sound during services constitute a “limitation”?
  • To what extent do safety-based building closures fall inside or outside the Clause?
  • How far does the public-lands carveout extend beyond “natural features” to, for example, permanent closure of a park?

E. Federal–state interaction and the Establishment Clause

While the ruling is grounded in Texas law, the Court is sensitive to federal constitutional constraints:

• The Texas Constitution can grant more protection than the federal Constitution, but not less, and cannot violate federal prohibitions (e.g., Establishment Clause).
• By limiting § 6-a’s scope (e.g., public-lands carveout) rather than its force, the Court attempts to:
  • Honor the state voters’ choice to give categorical protection to religious services within a defined ambit, and
  • Reduce the risk that Texas is seen as mandating religious favoritism that would run afoul of the Establishment Clause.

This “maximal-force, limited-scope” model could influence how other states draft or interpret similar amendments.

XI. Conclusion

Perez v. City of San Antonio is a landmark in Texas constitutional law for at least three reasons:

1. It establishes Article I, § 6-a as a genuinely categorical protection for religious services. Once within the Clause’s scope, government “may not” prohibit or limit such services—no matter how compelling the governmental interest or how narrow the policy.
2. It simultaneously cabins § 6-a’s scope. The Clause does not cover every impact on religious life, but only governmental statutes, orders, proclamations, decisions, or rules that “prohibit or limit religious services” conducted by qualifying religious organizations. It does not reach “governmental actions for the preservation and management of public lands,” even when those actions devastate religious uses of particular sites.
3. It signals a method and trajectory for future state constitutional adjudication. The Court relies on original public meaning, textual structure, and historical context—including legislative debates—to give practical content to a very recent amendment, while exercising restraint in the context of a certified question.

For religious communities, local governments, and litigators, the message is clear but nuanced:

• Religious services as such—gathering for worship and engaging in core worship practices—enjoy heightened, categorical constitutional protection in Texas against direct regulation.
• But that categorical shield does not extend to forcing the State to maintain public lands or natural ecologies in a form that matches religious conceptions of the sacred.

In effect, Perez marks the beginning, not the end, of Texas’s experiment with an absolute right carefully bounded by its own terms. Future cases will refine the edges, but this opinion lays down the foundational rule: absolute protection, in a limited domain.