Florida State Exemptions

Your rights to practice the tenants include indigenous traditional religious therapeutics, which are sacred to our Native American Indigenous Church Tribal Organization.

1. The establishment clause: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof… (First Amendment of the US constitution) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause

2. AIRFA (American Indian Freedom of Religion Act): “protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, use, and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites.”  It also protects Native religious expressions of Native American Churches.

3. RLUIPA: AIRFA was amended by the passage of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act: Which states, “No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person, assembly, or institution…”

4. 42 USC Chapter 21- Religious Freedom Restoration Act: 42 USC CHAPTER 21B – RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION
42 USC § 2000BB – CONGRESSIONAL FINDINGS AND DECLARATION OF PURPOSES
(a) Findings
The Congress finds that—
(1) the framers of the Constitution, recognizing the free exercise of religion as an unalienable right, secured its protection in the First Amendment to the Constitution;
(2) laws “neutral” toward religion may burden religious exercise as surely as laws intended to interfere with religious exercise;
(3) governments should not substantially burden religious exercise without compelling justification;

5. No Law shall be made in an attempt to prohibit the practice of a Religion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Lukumi_Babalu_Aye_v._City_of_Hialeah

A Florida Supreme Court decision in the decision for the Church stated, “religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent or comprehensible to others to merit First Amendment protection.”

6. The Court should not put someone’s faith on trial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Ballard

7. The Court Shall not rule on Doctrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_v._Hull_Church
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healy_v._James

8. A Privately held organization can reject a Law on a religious basis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwell_v._Hobby_Lobby_Stores,_Inc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Lee_%281982%29

Florida and the state of Florida Department of Health/ Massage Board are mandated to follow the US Code and the Supreme court president.

9. Florida’s Religious Freedom: Title XLIV Civil Rights:   “Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1998”, 761.03 Free exercise of religion protected. (http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0761/0761.html)
(1) The government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except that government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person:

The use of touching (Anointing, Chirothesia, Counseling, Religious Therapeutics) for healing and exchange of love and compassion is common practice as a religious expression in all religions. Some religions express their healing mission with more or less sophistication and elegance than others. That we apply our healing touch with sophistication and grace does not make it less “religious.”

The State of Florida Massage Therapy Board nor the State of Florida Department of Health do not have the legal authority to define our sacred anointing, Chirothesia, Religious Therapeutics, i.e., SomaVeda Integrated Traditional Therapies: Indigenous Thai Yoga as “Massage Therapy” as defined by Florida Statute.

Technically your not asking for a statutory exemption to the massage law as you were not doing anything legally defined as Massage Therapy nor proposing to do massage therapy!

Florida State Medical Board Exemptions