Tallahassee, USA - Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal organization that specializes in religious freedom cases, asked the Florida Supreme Court on Friday to throw out a Wiccan challenge to a state law that exempts Bibles, religious publications and ceremonial items from sales tax.
The Orlando-based group argued in papers filed with the high court that The Wiccan Religious Cooperative of Florida lacks legal standing to attack the law's constitutionality because it is not being harmed by the statute.
The Wiccans' lawyer, Heather Morcroft, said she would ask the Supreme Court to reject Liberty Counsel's intervention as coming too late.
The Wiccans, described on their Web sites as "an earth-based belief system or religion," contend the law is unconstitutional in part because it allows the state to decide what is a religion and what is not, Morcroft said.
They sued the state on Halloween 2000 after being denied a state sales-tax exemption because they didn't meet a requirement in the law by listing a place of worship.
The 1st District Court of Appeal in a 2-1 opinion ruled, as Liberty Counsel now argues, that the Wiccans lacked standing. The majority did not address the constitutional issues.