Religion & Law

Supreme Court Rejects Facial Challenge To Release of Petition Signers, But Says As-Applied Challenge May Win

Posted on June 24, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court today by an 8-1 vote rejected a facial challenge to Washington state's Public Records Act, but left open the possibility that a pending as-applied challenge could succeed. At issue in Doe v. Reed, (S. Ct., June 24, 2010), are objections to the release of the names of signers of a petition seeking a referendum to overturn Washington's expansion of the rights of domestic partners...

FLDS Member Gets 17 Years For Sexual Assault of Minor In Celestial Marriage

Posted on June 24, 2010
A Texas trial court judge yesterday sentenced FLDS member Abram Harker Jeffs to 17 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for sexual assault of a child. Jeffs was convicted of assaulting a 15-year old with whom he had entered a "spiritual" or "celestial" marriage while he was legally married to another woman...

Court Refuses To Halt Civil Rights Investigation of Home School Group

Posted on June 23, 2010
A state trial court judge in Hamilton County, Indiana has refused to intervene to prevent the Indiana Civil Rights Commission from investigating discrimination charges against a home schooling organization. According to today's Indianapolis Star, the Fishers Adolescent Catholic Enrichment Society (FACES), which organizes group activities for home-schooled children, claims that the burden of the Civil Rights investigation on the small group violates its members freedom of religion and association...

Volunteer Police Chaplain Fired Over Ties To Holy Land Foundation Case

Posted on June 23, 2010
Last December, the Illinois State Police appointed seven clergy to be volunteer police chaplains. However, according to today's Chicago Tribune, detailed background checks were not carried out at the time. Now one of those appointed as a Muslim chaplain, Sheikh Kifah Mustapha, associate director of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, has had his appointment revoked...

To access this complete feed in the blog feed reader login or register for free.

High School Diplomas Drop "In the Year of Our Lord"

Posted on June 23, 2010
Today's New Haven (CT) Register reports that after receiving a complaint last year, this year for the first time the diplomas awarded by New Haven, Connecticut high schools have dropped the phrase "in the year of our Lord". The city said that none of its other public documents use the phrase in reciting dates, while school superintendent Reginald Mayo said: "I'm surprised it took this long for someone to notice it...

Gay Pride Organizers Seek To Exclude Anti-Gay Christian Evangelist

Posted on June 23, 2010
In Minneapolis (MN), organizers of a gay pride festival expected to draw 200,000 people want the Minneapolis Park Board to bar a Christian evangelist from handing out literature at the event. According to yesterday's Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Park Board denied a booth to evangelist Brian Johnson, but approved a request that he be allowed to hand out anti-gay literature at Twin Cities Pride, saying that since it is a public event he is free to share his views so long as he does not disturb others...

Court Upholds Nebraska's Funeral Picketing Law

Posted on June 23, 2010
In Phelps-Roper v. Heineman, (D NE, June 21, 2010), a Nebraska federal district court upheld the constitutionality of the Nebraska Funeral Picketing Law. In so doing, the court refused a request by Shirley Phelps-Roper, a member of Westboro Baptist Church, to issue a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the statute ...

Michigan High Court Rejects Catholic School's Zoning Appeal

Posted on June 22, 2010
In Shepherd Montessori Center Milan v. Ann Arbor Charter Township, (MI Sup. Ct., June 18, 2010), the Michigan Supreme Court rejected a Catholic school's claim that the denial of its zoning variance request amounted to an infringement of its equal protection rights...

Zoo Enjoined From Barring Religious Group's Sale of T-Shirts

Posted on June 22, 2010
In Higher Taste v. City of Tacoma, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 60638 (WD WA, June 4, 2010), a Washington federal district court issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of a resolution adopted by the Metro Park District of Tacoma restricting the sale of goods in the entrance area of the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium...

Court Upholds Texas Rejection of Graduate Program In Creation Science

Posted on June 22, 2010
In Institute for Creation Research Graduate School v. Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, (WD TX, June 18, 2010), a Texas federal district court upheld the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board's refusal to grant the Institute of Creation Research Graduate School a certificate of authority to offer a Master of Science degree with a major in Science Education...

Rubashkin To Be Sentenced To 27 Years In Financial Fraud Case

Posted on June 22, 2010
Yesterday Iowa federal district judge Linda Reade released a 52-page Sentencing Memorandum in the case of United States v. Rubashkin. In it she concludes that at the hearing scheduled for today she will impose a sentence of 27 years in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, on Sholom Rubashkin who was convicted on 86 counts of financial fraud...

USCIRF Urges Obama To Publicly Raise Human Rights Concerns With Russian Leader

Posted on June 21, 2010
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will be in the United States this week to promote Russian-US economic ties. Tomorrow he visits California's Silicon Valley and on Thursday he will meet with President Obama in Washington. (Business Week). Last week, Leonard Leo, recently re-elected chairman of the U...

RLUIPA Lawsuit Filed By Hasidic Group Against New York Village

Posted on June 21, 2010
A lawsuit has been filed against the village of South Blooming Grove, New York by a Satmar Hasidic group that wants to restore an old club house at a former resort on Lake Anne. Today's Hudson Valley Times Herald-Record reports that the lawsuit, originally filed in state court but transferred to federal court on the judge's order, claims that the village's refusal to consider Sheri Torah's application violates RLUIPA...

Louisiana Passes Religious Freedom Act

Posted on June 21, 2010
The Louisiana legislature has passed and sent to Gov. Bobby Jindal for his signature SB 606, the Preservation of Religious Freedom Act. As reported by the Baton Rouge Advocate, final enactment came yesterday as the state Senate voted 30-6 to concur in House changes...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on June 21, 2010
From SSRN: Frederick Mark Gedicks, God of Our Fathers, Gods for Ourselves: Fundamentalism and Postmodern Belief, (William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal, Vol. 18, pp. 901-914, 2010).Carl H. Esbeck, Taxpayer Standing from Flast to Hein, (Mississippi Law Journal Online, Vol...

Groups Suggest Questions For Kagan On Establishment and Free Exercise

Posted on June 20, 2010
A release yesterday from the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism reports that 21 religious and secular organizations have sent a joint letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee suggesting questions that should be asked during the Elena Kagan hearings on the Supreme Court nominee's views on the First Amendment religion clauses...

6th Circuit Permits Evangelist To Distribute Literature On Outskirts of Arab Festival

Posted on June 20, 2010
In Saieg v. City of Dearborn, (6th Cir., June 17, 2010), the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an injunction pending appeal to permit a Christian evangelist to distribute religious literature on the streets in the "outer perimeter" or "buffer zone" of the 2010 Dearborn Arab International Festival this week...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on June 20, 2010
In Powell v. Raemisch, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57798 (WD WI, June 11, 2010), a Wisconsin federal district court permitted a Muslim inmate to proceed with free exercise and RLUIPA claims alleging that he was denied Ramadan meal bags for 18 days during Ramadan in 2009...

7th Circuit: "Deific Decree Exception" In Insanity Defense Has Establishment Problems

Posted on June 20, 2010
In Wilson v. Gaetz, (7th Cir., June 17, 2010), the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has raised an interesting Establishment Clause concern over a traditional aspect of the insanity defense. The case involved a murder defendant who suffered from delusions about a sinister Catholic conspiracy...

9th Circuit Says Amended Mining Plan For Sacred Mt. Tenabo Violates NEPA

Posted on June 20, 2010
In Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone of Western Nevada v. U.S. Department of the Interior, (9th Cir., June 18, 2010), the 9th Circuit held that the Bureau of Land Management's approval of an amendment to a phased exploration project on sacred Indian land in Nevada violated the National Environmental Policy Act...

New Zealand Court Faces Religious Accommodation Issue In Community Service Sentence

Posted on June 20, 2010
New Zealand's Dominion Post yesterday reported on an unusual religious accommodation issue that has arisen in a community service sentence imposed by a New Zealand court on a recent Muslim convert. Last December, Jason Osborne was sentenced to 300 hours of community work for failure to pay $15,334 of fines...

Quebec Court Orders Exemption From Religious Culture Course For Catholic School

Posted on June 19, 2010
In Canada, a Quebec Superior Court yesterday ordered the provincial government to grant an exemption from the mandatory course in Ethics and Religious Culture to a private Catholic high school. In a reform implemented last year, Quebec required both public schools and private religious schools (most of which receive some government funding) to offer a course in Ethics and Religious Culture covering Christianity, Judaism, aboriginal spirituality, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism...

Suit Planned Against Legion of Christ Over Sex Abuse

Posted on June 19, 2010
AP reports that a Mexican man, Jose Raul Gonzalez, plans to file suit on Monday against the Legion of Christ claiming that the now-deceased priest who founded the religious order was his father and sexually molested him. Gonzalez' mother, Blanca Lara Gutierrez, claims that Legion founder Rev...

New Jersey Rabbi Pleads Guilty To Money Laundering

Posted on June 18, 2010
The Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger reports that yesterday Rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, former head of a prominent synagogue in Deal, New Jersey, plead guilty in a New Jersey federal district court to money laundering charges. Ben Haim was one of five rabbis from the Syrian Jewish community and 39 others arrested last year in a high profile federal investigation of public corruption and money laundering...

Priest Publicly Challenges La Crosse Diocese's Standards In Reviewing Abuse Charges

Posted on June 18, 2010
Yesterday's Milwaukee (WI) Journal Sentinel reports that James Connell, a priest and canon lawyer who serves on the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Review Board has issued an open letter (full text) complaining that the standard of proof used by the Diocese of La Crosse's Child Sexual Abuse Review Board in evaluating whether to pursue a case against a priest or deacon is too high...

Lawsuit Challenges Coney Island Concerts Invoking Protection of Nearby Religious Services

Posted on June 18, 2010
In Brooklyn, New York, opponents of a proposed $64 million amphitheater project in Coney Island's Asser Levy Park filed suit in state court yesterday, invoking a city law designed to protect religious congregations. (See prior related posting.) The law prohibits amplified sound within 500 feet of religious institutions, schools, courthouses and other gathering places when they are in session...

RLUIPA Suits Settled-- Shabbos House OK'd; Prayer Breakfast Will Move

Posted on June 18, 2010
AP yesterday reported that the village of Sufferin, New York has settled a RLUIPA lawsuit brought against it by the Department of Justice chllenging the village's refusal to grant a zoning variance to permit the operation of a "Shabbos House" near Good Samaritan Hospital...

European Court Says Poland Forced Student To Indirectly Reveal Religious Beliefs

Posted on June 17, 2010
In Grzelak v. Poland, (ECHR, June 15, 2010), the European Court of Human Rights by a vote of 6-1 held that a Polish school violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it failed to offer an ethics class for a student who opted out of the school's religious education class...

Trial Judge Hears Closing Arguments In Challenge To California's Prop 8

Posted on June 17, 2010
Yesterday in federal district court in San Francisco, Judge Vaugh Walker heard closing arguments in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal constitutional challenge to California's Proposition 8 that bans same-sex marriage. The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle report on the arguments in which Charles J...

Cair Says U.S. Muslims Stranded Abroad After Being Placed on No-Fly List

Posted on June 17, 2010
On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations wrote Attorney General Eric Holder (full text of letter) complaining about cases of U.S. citizens who, while traveling abroad, have been placed on the U.S. no-fly list and have been delayed or prevented from returning home...

Bloggers, promote your law blog by nominating your blog for inclusion in USLaw.com's Law Blog Directory and RSS Reader. Benefits described.