Religion & Law

In This Year?s Christmas Wars, More Cities Eliminate Religious Displays

Posted on December 08, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: According to yesterday's Knoxville News, the city of Maryville ended its 22-year tradition of having a local radio personality read the Christmas story from the book of Luke as part of the annual "Illumination of the Greenbelt" festivities.

Court Dismisses Suit Over Firing, Invokes Ministerial Exception

Posted on December 08, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: "In Guerrier v. Southern New England Conference Association of Seventh-Day Adventists, 2009 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2962 (CT Super., Nov. 12, 2009), a Connecticut trial court invoked the ministerial exception doctrine to dismiss a group of tort and contract claims filed by a minister who had been removed by defendant as pastor of Shekinah Haitian Church in Norwich ...

Kurowski and Voydatch Roundup

Posted on December 08, 2009
Homeschooling Research Notes: "Since [Kurowski] is a custody-related case, it, like the In re Rachel L. case in California, was at first not on the radar screen of the leading homeschooling watchdog groups. It is now. For a little over a month the story was unknown in the homeschooling world...

High court agrees to hear Christian student club?s case

Posted on December 08, 2009
Christian Post: "'Christian students have the right to gather as Christians for a common purpose and around shared beliefs,' added ADF Senior Legal Counsel Gregory S. Baylor with the ADF Center for Academic Freedom. 'It?s completely unreasonable ? and unconstitutional ? for a public university to disrupt the purposes of private student groups by forcing them to accept as members and officers those who oppose the very ideas they advocate...

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Newdow Asks DC Circuit To Eliminate Opening Cry Before His Case Is Heard

Posted on December 08, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: "The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Dec. 15 in Newdow v. Roberts, a case which challenged the use of 'so help me God' in the oath administered by Chief Justice John Roberts in swearing in President Barack Obama...

High Court to hear case of Christian student group

Posted on December 08, 2009
CitizenLink: "The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide the constitutionality of a non-discrimination policy at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco . . . The Alliance Defense Fund is representing the students in the case."

Joseph Martins: Forcing tolerance?how to skate on thin ice

Posted on December 08, 2009
Joseph Martins writes at the Center for Academic Freedom Blog: "As the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, public universities?like all government entities?need to give private organizations a wide berth for the exercise of First Amendment freedoms, rather than looking for ways to encroach as far as the Constitution will technically permit...

Greg Baylor: U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear lawsuit against UC-Hastings

Posted on December 08, 2009
Greg Baylor writes at the ADF Center for Academic Freedom Blog: "More broadly, the freedom of all religious groups ? not just campus organizations ? to associate around shared religious commitment is under attack. For example, the ACLU and its allies are working to exclude faith-based social service providers from federally funded programs on the ground that they 'discriminate' on the basis of religion and 'sexual orientation...

Supreme Court agrees to hear Hastings Law School case; right to expressive association on campus hangs in the balance

Posted on December 08, 2009
FIRE: "Martinez is possibly the most important case concerning FIRE's core issues to come before the Supreme Court in our decade of existence, and Torch readers will be hearing much more about it in the weeks and months to come. In the meantime, check out initial reactions from UCLA Law professor and noted blogger Eugene Volokh and Alliance Defense Fund Senior Counsel and former FIRE President David French...

U.S. Supreme Court will hear dispute over campus recognition of Christian group

Posted on December 08, 2009
Chronicle of Higher Education: "Gregory S. Baylor, a laywer for the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal-advocacy group assisting the legal society in the case, said, 'It's completely unreasonable?and unconstitutional?for a public university to disrupt the purposes of private student groups by forcing them to accept as members and officers those who oppose the very ideas they advocate...

Cert grant in Christian Legal Society leadership-selection case

Posted on December 08, 2009
Thomas Berg at Mirror of Justice: "See the press release from CLS and the Alliance Defense Fund. It is excellent news for organizational freedom that the Court is willing to look at overturning the Ninth Circuit decision in this case."

NY: Amish fail to reach settlement with town

Posted on December 08, 2009
Watertown Daily Times reported at theBecket Fund: "The Amish say the town refuses to issue permits that allow them to build homes according to their beliefs. The Amish, members of the Old Order Swartzentruber sect, say their religious beliefs will be violated if the town forces them to install smoke detectors in their homes, submit engineering plans and allow home inspections...

Patrick F. Fagan: ?The Quiet Family Killer: Pornography and Marriage?

Posted on December 08, 2009
Townhall: "It?s time for a sex-oriented culture like Americas to consider the cost of this kind of pornographic saturation. Here is some of what the studies showed . . . "

NJ: Bill to redefine marriage passes committee, moves to full Senate

Posted on December 08, 2009
"Cheers erupted in the packed hearing room when the committee approved the bill 7-6. The 10:06 p.m. vote came after more than 1,000 people flooded the Statehouse yesterday . . . "

Charter Colleges Could Provide Real Alternatives to a Corrupt System

Posted on December 08, 2009
Marvin Olasy writes at Townhall: "Under a provocative headline?'Will a Culture of Entitlement Bankrupt Higher Education?'?Shirvani compared colleges and universities to the auto industry and noted that "resistance to change in academe has helped create inflexible, unsustainable organizations" like General Motors ...

Md. panel approves slot machine license

Posted on December 08, 2009
AP: "A state commission approved a slots commission license for a site in Anne Arundel County on Monday, but the proposal that would be the state's largest slot machine facility still needs local zoning approval . . . "

Rutherford Institute asks U.S. Supreme Court to Protect student artistic expression, reverse ban on instrumental performance of ?Ave Maria?

Posted on December 08, 2009
Rutherford Institute Press Release: "Voicing the concern that arts education in the public schools is in danger of being sanitized of any art with remotely religious themes or inspiration, The Rutherford Institute has asked the U.S Supreme Court to weigh in on a case in which public school officials banned the performance of an instrumental arrangement of Franz Biebl's 'Ave Maria' at a high school graduation simply because the superintendent feared it might be religious...

Free Speech & Election Law: Freedom of Speech vs. Anti-Discrimination Laws

Posted on December 08, 2009
Free Speech & Election Law: Freedom of Speech vs. Anti-Discrimination Laws Prof. David Bernstein, Prof. Andrew Koppelman, Prof. Kenneth L. Marcus, Prof. Eugene Volokh, Moderator: Prof. Lillian R. BeVier, 31 N.C. Cent. L. Rev. 207 (2009) ". . . But gay students aren?t allowed to exclude Christians who have conservative views on sexuality, or Christians aren?t allowed to exclude gay rights activists...

Senate Defeats Nelson Amendment to Stop Abortion Funding in Health Care Bill

Posted on December 08, 2009
The Senate on Tuesday voted 54-45 to defeat the Nelson amendment that would have removed the massive abortion funding from the Senate government-run health care bill.

Mike Johnson on The Drew Mariani Show: The War on Christmas

Posted on December 08, 2009
ADF attorney Mike Johnson on the Drew Mariani Show with Wendy Wees to discuss the "War on Christmas." The MP3 runs 18 minutes.

Fistgate II: High School Students Given ?Fisting Kits? At Kevin Jennings? 2001 GLSEN Conference

Posted on December 08, 2009
Breitbart Big Government: "During the 2000 conference, workshop leaders led a 'youth only, ages 14-21' session that offered lessons in 'fisting' a dangerous sexual practice."

The Ethics of Discriminating Against Federalist Society Members For Law Firm Jobs

Posted on December 08, 2009
Orin Kerr comments at the Volokh Conspiracy on law firm discrimination against members of the Federalist Society.

Christmas Trees and Santa Thrown out of Oregon School

Posted on December 08, 2009
Liberty Counsel: "Principal Michelle Zundel of Bellview Elementary School in Ashland, Oregon, has banned Christmas trees and Santa Claus from her school."

Christmas trees banned at Copenhagan climate summit

Posted on December 06, 2009
"But Christmas is a religious holiday that has no place at a United Nations function, according to the Foreign Ministry?s Svend Olling . . . "

?2nd gay bishop for Episcopal Church, Anglicans?

Posted on December 05, 2009
"The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles elected a lesbian as assistant bishop Saturday, the second openly gay bishop in the global Anglican fellowship, which is already deeply fractured over the first."

Matt Bowman: Government funding of abortion is not like government funding of Christian social service agencies

Posted on December 04, 2009
On closer scrutiny, Prof. Kaveny?s melodramatic analogy falls apart. Opposing government funding of abortion is not like opposing government funding of Christian social service agencies and churches. And the difference isn?t just that abortion is wrong and Christian social service is right...

Jeremy Dys: Without Stupak, healthcare legislation eviscerates Hyde

Posted on December 04, 2009
Jeremy Dys of the Family Policy Council of West Virginia writes in the Charleston Gazette: "The fact is the Hyde Amendment, behind which Ms. Wright attempts to hide, depends on annual appropriations to be effective. But, in the current version of health reform, the appropriations for health care are self-appropriating...

Obama Lights National Christmas Tree

Posted on December 04, 2009
The Religion Clause Blog reports and the ceremony and the text of President Obama's remarks.

?The 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act?

Posted on December 04, 2009
In a Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel article, Stephen Lendman wonders about the actual effects of the 2009 Hate Crimes Prevention Act: "The Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a conservative legal alliance partnered with over 300 ministries and organizations, fears that pastors calling homosexuality a sin may be linked to a hate crime if a parishioner harms someone for their sexual orientation ...

Intervention Denied In Case Challenging Parsonage Allowance

Posted on December 04, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: "In Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Geithner, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111776 (ED CA, Dec. 2, 2009), a California federal district court refused to permit a pastor to intervene in FFRF's Establishment Clause challenge to the parsonage allowance provisions in the federal and California tax laws...

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