Constitutionally stumped. (Updates).

In Minnesota, the royal rumble between loggers and environmentalists has resurfaced under the mantle of constitutional philosophy (see "The Forest Primeval," September/October 1997). A logging group filed suit against the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and two environmental groups, claiming a violation of the First Amendment's establishment clause. The argument maintains that the groups' "deep ecology" philosophy is religious in nature, and that when the USFS sided with these environmentalists it was violating the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. The loggers' lawyers claim that any citation or invocation of religious beliefs is incompatible with government policy. Sam Hitt, director of the defendant group Forest Guardians, says he wonders "what planet their attorneys live on."

Ernest Grumbles, legal counsel for the Superior Wilderness Action Network (SWAN), the other environmental defendant group, calls the case a "SLAPP" suit--a strategic lawsuit against public participation--used as a "scare tactic to drive up the cost of litigation." In the wake of massive media coverage, however, SWAN Director Ray Fenner says the litigation has "more than backfired. It collapsed. In February, the suit was thrown out of court. CONTACT: SWAN, [phone], www.superiorwild.org; Forest Guardians, [phone], www.fguardians.org.