Religion & Law

Massachusetts: Bankers? hours expand to Sundays

Posted on June 01, 2009
The Boston Globe: "Sunday banking hours would have been unthinkable several decades ago, when many banks were open only during the week. And the state's blue laws long barred retailers and banks from opening on Sundays. The big development came in 1996, when Massachusetts legislators allowed state-chartered banks to offer Sunday hours, after some federally regulated institutions opened branches in supermarkets on Sundays...

The Olson/Boies Challenge to California?s Proposition 8: A High-Risk Effort

Posted on June 01, 2009
John W. Dean writes at Findlaw: "It would be wonderful if Olson and Boies were to succeed. It will be a disaster if they fail. While they will go on to their next big case, untold thousands in the LGBT community could be devastated by their failure. Olson and Boies are placing at risk the slow, state-by-state, steady progress that has been moving apace across the nation...

Prop. 8 battle - will it ever end?

Posted on June 01, 2009
One News Now: Nimocks explains homosexual activists use the courts because it is about the only resource avaiable to them in most states, if they hope to gain victory. As he points out, popular votes tend not to support the radical homosexual agenda when it comes to marriage...

Schumer: Sotomayor Practically ?Filibuster-Proof?

Posted on June 01, 2009
Fox News: "I think she's virtually filibuster-proof when people learn her record and her story," he said.

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46 States, D.C. Plan to Draft Common Education Standards

Posted on June 01, 2009
Washington Post: "Forty-six states and the District of Columbia today will announce an effort to craft a single vision for what children should learn each year from kindergarten through high school graduation, an unprecedented step toward a uniform definition of success in American schools...

American Indian Charter Schools: Spitting in the eye of mainstream education

Posted on June 01, 2009
LA Times: "Three no-frills charter schools in Oakland mock liberal orthodoxy, teach strictly to the test -- and produce some of the state's top scores."

Connecticut Diocese Sues To Avoid Registration As Lobbyist

Posted on June 01, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: "The Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against Connecticut's Office of State Ethics seeking to enjoin the Office from taking action to force the Diocese to register with the state as a lobbyist."

Graham calls for Sotomayor apology

Posted on June 01, 2009
Washington Times: “Sen. Lindsey Graham called on Judge Sonia Sotomayor to apologize for remarks she made in a 2001 speech about her ethnic heritage, though he said he does not believe her to be racist.” Visit Site »

Two Employment Discrimination Cases? One Settled, One Filed

Posted on June 01, 2009
The Religion Clause Blog reports on two pending Religious Discrimination cases in the news. Visit Site »

San Diego County Backs Off Controversial Zoning Citation Against Bible-Study Group Meetings

Posted on June 01, 2009
Religion Clause: "As reported last week by the Christian Examiner and the San Diego Union-Tribune, Paster David Jones and his wife hold weekly Bible study sessions at their home. Around 20 people attend. After complaints about parking congestion, the county told the Jones' that regulations required a permit to use premises for 'religious assemblies...

Attorney General Directs U.S. Marshals to Protect Abortion Providers After Murder

Posted on June 01, 2009
FoxNews: "U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder dispatched the U.S. Marshals Service to protect 'appropriate people and facilities around the nation' in the wake of the murder of late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas on Sunday morning...

Nevada legislature overrides veto to approve domestic partnerships

Posted on June 01, 2009
The Assembly's 28-14 vote ? the bare two-thirds majority needed ? followed the state Senate's vote a day earlier to enact the measure into state lawbooks over the conservative Republican governor's objections."

California Public School District Will Force All First Graders to Follow Curriculum That Normalizes Same-Sex Unions

Posted on June 01, 2009
CNSNews: "The Alameda, Calif., public schools are adopting a curriculum that will require first graders to read literature that equates same-sex unions with a family made up of a mother, father and child. Parents will not be allowed to opt their first graders out of the curriculum...

Without Congressional Approval or Legislative Authority, Obama Plans for Government to Take Majority Interest in General Motors

Posted on June 01, 2009
CNSNews: "Without the prior approval of Congress or any legislation authorizing the act, President Obama plans to announce on Monday that the federal government will take a 60-percent ownership stake in General Motors as part of a bankruptcy and reorganization plan for the company...

Indian Court Says It Can Decide What Are Basic Tenets of a Religion

Posted on June 01, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: "In India, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in Kaur v. State of Punjab, (High Ct. P&H, May 30, 2009), upheld the decision of a Medical College to refuse to admit petitioners under the quota set aside for members of the Sikh minority community because the applicants did not observe a major tenet of the Sikh religion-- keeping their hair unshorn...

GLSEN founder overseeing safety of nation?s schools?

Posted on June 01, 2009
One News Now: "A conservative activist says the appointment of the founder of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network to head the U.S. Education Department's Office of Safe Schools is the equivalent of putting O.J. Simpson in charge of women's safety...

RS Asked to Investigate Tax Status of Americans United for Separation of Church and State

Posted on June 01, 2009
Liberty Counsel: "AU is not concerned about truth. It is only concerned with getting its name in the media. Its statements are designed to intimidate, silence, and harm those with whom it disagrees. AU?s activity is both reckless and partisan. It is reckless because AU never investigates the accuracy of its alleged complaints...

California high court perpetuated license problem in Prop. 8 decision

Posted on June 01, 2009
ADF attorney Glen Lavy writes at the The Hill (also posted last week at Townhall): What motivated the justices to allow the creation of this unnecessary controversy-one that the court then ?resolved? contrary to the clear language of the amendment? Was the court deliberately setting the stage for an ?equal protection? claim under the federal Constitution? We will see.

Dutch Cabinet Will Not Move To Repeal Blasphemy Law

Posted on June 01, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: The cabinet now believes that other laws are inadequate after the Netherlands Supreme Court in March overturned the conviction of a man charged with hanging a poster in his window reading: "Stop the tumour that is Islam."

USCIRF Asks Obama To Raise Religious Freedom Issues In Saudi Arabia, Egypt

Posted on June 01, 2009
Religion Clause Blog: "Last week, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom sent letters (full text) to the President urging him to use the speech to stress the importance of protecting religious rights of minority religions in Muslim countries...

?Proponents Take Fight for Marriage Rights to State?s ?Conservative Center??

Posted on June 01, 2009
760KFMB.com: "In the meantime, opponents are putting up a fight of their own. The influential Christian group The Alliance Defense Fund filed court papers this week to fight a federal lawsuit against Proposition 8."

Polls: 70% of Spaniards oppose abortion without parental consent

Posted on June 01, 2009
AP: "Up to 70 percent of Spaniards oppose abortion law reform plans that would allow girls as young as 16 to terminate a pregnancy without their parents' consent, according to two polls released Monday."

3rd Circuit upholds school?s refusal to allow mom to read Psalms to kindergarteners

Posted on June 01, 2009
These claims stem from an elementary school?s restriction of the mother?s effort to read aloud from scripture to students in her son?s kindergarten classroom as part of a curricular ?show and tell?-type activity.

Okla. Republican Coburn to run again 2010

Posted on June 01, 2009
AP: "Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma says he will run for re-election next year to a second term in the U.S. Senate.

?Everything but marriage? bills advancing

Posted on June 01, 2009
Baptist Press: Austin R. Nimocks, an attorney with the legal group Alliance Defense Fund -- which opposes "gay marriage" -- said earlier this year, "All non-partisan research and plain common sense tells us that children need a mom and dad, so the issue is bigger than a 'personal relationship...

Illinois Lawmakers leave hot-button issues in limbo: civil unions

Posted on June 01, 2009
Pantagraph.com: "The clock ran out on lawmakers this year as they left town early Monday with a number of hot-button issues unresolved."

?How Far Will Mormons Go to Fight Gay Marriage??

Posted on June 01, 2009
U.S. News and World Report: "Now that Prop 8 has been upheld by the California Supreme Court, gay rights groups say they will put gay marriage on the ballot in California again, and mount a full scale effort to win public approval, perhaps as soon as 2010...

The Coercion Test: On Prayer, Offense, and Doctrinal Inculcation

Posted on June 01, 2009
Saint Louis University Law Journal: "The Article concludes by highlighting some of the ways in which the Court's jurisprudence has created unnecessary difficulty and confusion and by noting that until members of the Court can reach much more of a consensus about what the coercion test is designed to prevent and what kind of coercion is constitutionally proscribed, the chaos and confusion in the jurisprudence and in the lower courts will only increase...

Sotomayor the Subjectivist

Posted on June 01, 2009
Robert T. Miller writing at First Things: "First, contrary to what Judge Sotomayor?s earlier words may have suggested, she in fact believes that there are no objectively correct answers in (at least many) law cases ('there is no objective stance'). Second, since impartiality entails excluding irrelevant factors that would divert one from the objectively correct answer, impartiality presupposes objectively correct answers; hence, in the absence of objectively correct answers, impartiality loses its meaning...

Spain changes tack on universal jurisdiction

Posted on June 01, 2009
Soeren Kern reports in The Brussels Journal: "The Spanish Parliament has approved a resolution urging Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to limit the power of judges to prosecute people for atrocities and human rights crimes committed abroad under the concept of universal jurisdiction ...

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