The initiative has a home: an open record for RFRA-based policy reform

What this initiative is for

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) is a federal law from 1993. It says the government may not substantially burden a person’s sincere exercise of religion unless it can show a compelling reason, pursued in the least restrictive way. In 2006 the Supreme Court applied it to a church’s sacramental tea. The library’s first explainer walks through both.

This initiative works on that ground, seen from Pennsylvania. It’s meant to serve communities whose sincere spiritual practice includes sacraments the law still restricts, and it does three things:

• Gathers evidence: public sources on the law, court decisions, research and practice, each one cited and checked.
• Explains it plainly, in words anyone can follow, with drafts marked as drafts until they’ve been reviewed.
• Keeps an open record of every step, here.

It’s a policy and evidence lane. It doesn’t tell anyone’s personal story, and nothing here is legal advice.

What’s here now

• The changelog (this page’s home): every step, newest first.
• The library, starting with RFRA in plain words, a draft to be reviewed.
• The ledger: every public change to the initiative’s code, in plain words, refreshed daily. Work in its private repositories shows too, with the words masked.
• The map: every page, each with the picture its link shows when shared.
• The roadmap: an evidence library, a Pennsylvania lane, partner organizations, and what this work can mean for each community it serves.
• Sustainability: what keeps these pages running.
• The dApp preview: the evidence library’s shelves (coming soon), a pledge you can try with a wallet signature (a preview: no gas, no contract, and nothing is recorded), updates from this record, and an About page.

Both sites share one look and one set of controls: pick a light (Docket, Parchment or Capitol), turn on reading mode, press / to search everything, or open the welcome guide.

How updates will appear

• Here first. Each step gets a dated entry: a one-line summary up top, the full story folded underneath, and credit to whoever did the work, by first name and last initial.
• “What’s new.” Come back later and a small pill in the header counts what’s new since your last visit.
• The ledger fills in the step-by-step detail every day.
• Explainers arrive in the library marked as drafts, and say so plainly once they’ve been reviewed.
• Partner organizations: to be announced. When one is ready to be named, it gets an entry here.