Religion & Law

Morocco Expels 50 Christians; US Government and Religious Group Protest

Posted on April 07, 2010
Morocco last month expelled around 50 Christians accused of proselytizing Muslims in violation of Moroccan law. (Moroccan authorities say the number was 27.) UAE's The National today reports that the expulsions include 16 staffers at the Village of Hope who were accused of using foster care as a cover for converting Moroccan children to Christianity...

Australian Police Stop Crucifixion Reenactment As Offensive

Posted on April 07, 2010
Last Saturday, police in the Australian town of Geelong, Victoria, stopped a graphic depiction of Jesus' crucifixion being enacted in a busy shopping area. Police say the semi-nude Jesus covered with fake blood violated laws prohibiting offensive behavior in public...

Blogger States Free Speech and Establishment Clause Claims

Posted on April 07, 2010
In Rich v. City of Jacksonville, (MD FL, March 31, 2010), a Florida federal district court refused to dismiss claims by a blogger in a lawsuit against a police officer and an assistant state attorney. Tom Rich began an anonymous blog on which he raised concerns about the pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville...

Complaint Filed Over Local Official's Washing of Government Employees' Feet

Posted on April 07, 2010
In St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana, the ACLU has sent a letter to Parish President Craig Taffaro complaining about the official's decision on the Thursday before Easter to wash the feet of Parish employees. WSDU News reported yesterday that Taffaro says he did not see the practice as a religious act, but as an act of public service...

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

Man Arrested After Suit Claims Religious Entitlement To Use Force At Abortion Clinic

Posted on April 06, 2010
In Plano, Texas, the FBI has arrested Erlyndon Joseph ''Joey'' Lo on charges of using interstate commerce to communicate a threat and threatening force to intimidate clients and employees of a reproductive health service. New York Times reported yesterday that the charges grew out of a class action lawsuit filed by the 27-year old Lo in Plano, Texas in which he threatened to use deadly force to stop an abortion at a named clinic in Dallas if the U...

Court Enjoins Military Base Rule That Bars Anti-Islamic Decals On Vehicles

Posted on April 06, 2010
In Nieto v. Flatau, (ED NC, March 31, 2010), a North Carolina federal district court enjoined officials at Camp Lejeune (NC) from enforcing a Base regulation prohibiting the display of extremist, indecent or racist messages on vehicles. Plaintiff was ordered to remove several anti-Islamic decals from his vehicle...

President Obama Hosts Easter Prayer Breakfast

Posted on April 06, 2010
The White House this morning hosted Christian leaders from across the country at an Easter Prayer Breakfast. In remarks delivered in the East Room (full text), the President said in part: One of my hopes upon taking this office was to make the White House a place where all people would feel welcome...

Supreme Court Refuses Review In Alleged Anti-Muslim Bias of Juror

Posted on April 06, 2010
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Al-Turki v. Colorado (Docket No. 09-700) (Order List.) In the case, Colorado state courts refused to exclude or allow closer questioning in voir dire of a potential juror who said he might be prejudiced against Muslims...

Church As Murder Location Amounts to Aggravating Circumstance In Sentencing

Posted on April 04, 2010
On Thursday, a Kansas judge sentenced Scott Roeder, convicted killer of abortion doctor George Tiller, to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 50 years. Yesterday's Topeka Capital-Journal points out that in imposing sentence, the judge concluded that the fact the murder was committed in a church was an aggravating circumstance...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on April 04, 2010
From SSRN:Geoffrey P. Miller, The Dark Age: How the Biblical Narratives Demonstrate the Necessity for Law and Government, (NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 10-18, March 24, 2010).Geoffrey P. Miller, Of Floods and Towers: The Bible?s Affirmative Case for Law and Government, (NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on April 04, 2010
In Howard v. Skolnik, (9th Cir., March 30, 2010), the 9th Circuit rejected a prisoner's free exercise claim based on two alleged incidents of interference with his fasting. However the court vacated summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings plaintiff's objection to the calcelling of Nation of Islam prayer services...

Unusual Free Exercise Assertion In FOIA Case Rejected

Posted on April 04, 2010
In Banks v. Department of Justice, (D DC, March 26, 2010), the D.C. federal district court found unpersuasive an unusual argument in a Freedom of Information Act case. Plaintiff, seeking various records about himself and others argued that "his religion, Thelema, mandates that he access the records to purge all the negative energy from his life in a religious ritual...

Muslim Tourists Scuffle With Police After Attempt To Pray In Former Mosque, Now A Cathedral

Posted on April 04, 2010
In Cordoba, Spain last Wednesday, security guards and police scuffled with a group of Muslim tourists from Austria who were visiting the Roman Catholic Mezquita Catedral-- a UNESCO World Heritage site. According to AP, the Great Mosque of Cordoba was built after the Moorish invasion of Spain in the 8th century, and the building was turned into a Catholic cathedral in 1236 when King Ferdinand captured Cordoba...

PUBLICATION SCHEDULE: THE NEXT NEW POSTS WILL APPEAR ON TUESDAY NIGHT

Posted on April 04, 2010

Court Finds That Church Trustee Breached Duty In Conveying Property

Posted on April 03, 2010
In Garmon v. Reynolds, (IN App., March 31, 2010), an Indiana appellate court resolved a dispute over whether the son of the founding pastor of the Zion Temple Apostolic Church validly conveyed certain parcels of church property to a privately held trust...

Catholic High School Fails To Show Substantial Free Exercise Burden From Zoning Denial

Posted on April 03, 2010
Academy of Our Lady of Peace v. City of San Diego, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 31873 (SD CA, April 1, 2010), is a RLUIPA and a 1st and 14th Amendment challenge by a Catholic college-preparatory high school to San Diego's refusal to issue zoning permits so the school can add a classroom building and parking structure to its campus...

President Obama Marks Easter and Passover

Posted on April 03, 2010
President Obama's Weekly Address today (full text and video recording) focused on Passover and Easter. He said in part: This is a week of faithful celebration. On Monday and Tuesday nights, Jewish families and friends in the United States and around the world gathered for a Seder to commemorate the Exodus from Egypt and the triumph of hope and perseverance over injustice and oppression...

Malaysian Court's Caning Sentence Commuted By Sultan, Over Objections of Muslim Lawyers' Group

Posted on April 02, 2010
In a widely publicized decision last year, a Shariah court in Malaysia imposed a sentence of caning on Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno who was found drinking beer at a hotel bar. (See prior posting 1, 2.) Today's Malaysian Insider reports that the sentence has now been commuted by the Sultan of Pahang, who is also head of Islam in the Malaysian state...

8th Circuit Holds Temp Agency Could Enforce No-Headwear Rule of Employer

Posted on April 02, 2010
In EEOC v. Kelly Services, Inc., (8th Cir., March 25, 2010), the 8th Circuit rejected charges that Kelly, a temp agency, discriminated against Asthma Suliman, a Muslim woman, when it refused to refer her to a job at a printing plant because she insisted on wearing a khimar...

California Supreme Court Rejects Krsihna Challenge To Airport Anti-Solicitation Ordinance

Posted on April 02, 2010
In International Society for Krishna Consciousness of California, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, (CA Sup. Ct., March 25, 2010), the California Supreme Court concluded that a city ordinance prohibiting individuals from soliciting funds at Los Angeles International Airport is a reasonable time, place and manner restriction that does not violate the California constitution...

EEOC Sues Lowes For Failing To Accommodate Sunday Sabbath Observer

Posted on April 02, 2010
The EEOC announced earlier this week that it has filed suit against Lowe's Home Centers alleging that Lowe's failed to accommodate the needs of a Baptist employee who had religious objections to working on Sundays. The suit seeks to have the employee (now on part-time status) reinstated as a full time employee with accommodations for his religious beliefs...

Claim By Hasidic Jews That Challenge To Zoning Was Pretext For Discrimination Is Dismissed

Posted on April 02, 2010
Mosdos Chofets Chaim, Inc. v. Village of Wesley Hills, (SD NY, March 31, 2010), is the latest in a series of legal maneuvers involving tension between several New York villages and the Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish families moving in increasing numbers to Ramapo (NY) and areas around it in Rockland County...

Gospel Tracts In Form of $1M Bills Do Not Violate Counterfeiting Laws

Posted on April 02, 2010
Darrel Rundus' Great News Network is a Christian evangelizing organization. Its most successful Gospel tract is one made to look like U.S. currency in the form of a $1 million dollar bill (a denomination of currency not issued by the United States). On the reverse of the bill is an inscription that includes: "The million dollar question...

Christian Counseling Student's Discrimination Claim Survives Motions To Dismiss

Posted on April 02, 2010
In Ward v. Members of the Board of Control of Eastern Michigan University, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 27861 (ED MI, March 24, 2010), a Michigan federal district court denied defendants' motions to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a graduate student in Eastern Michigan University's counseling program who was dismissed from the program after, in a Practicum, she refused to counsel a client on a homosexual relationship...

Annual White House Easter Egg Roll Will Add Healthful Events

Posted on April 02, 2010
This year's annual White House Easter Egg Roll will be held Monday, April 5. BWW reports today that the event will build on the First Lady's campaign against childhood obesity. In addition to the traditional Easter egg hunt and roll, the event will feature sports zones, activities built around the White House kitchen garden, and an instructional dance center...

Cert. Filed In School's Ban of Religious Music In Holiday Concerts

Posted on April 01, 2010
On Monday, a petition for certiorari (full text) was filed in Stratechuck v. Board of Education, South Orange- Maplewood School District. In the case, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a New Jersey school district's policy banning celebratory religious holiday music at school-sponsored holiday concerts...

Lawsuit Challenges Health Care Bill on Free Exercise Grounds

Posted on April 01, 2010
Last week, moments after President Obama signed the health care reform bill, the Thomas More Law Center filed suit on behalf of itself and four individuals challenging the constitutionality of the new law on a number of grounds including a claim that it violates plaintiffs' free exercise rights...

Catholic Church Challenges Baltimore Ordinance Regulating Pregnancy Counseling Centers

Posted on April 01, 2010
According to the Baltimore (MD) Sun, the Archdiocese of Baltimore has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Baltimore ordinance that requires pregnancy counseling centers to post signs (in English and Spanish) informing clients that they do not refer women for abortion or birth control...

NY High Court: Hate Crime Law Can Apply To Property Offenses

Posted on April 01, 2010
In People v. Assi, (NY Ct. App., March 30, 2010), New York's high court held that New York's Hate Crimes Act of 2000 can cover religiously-motivated property crimes, as well as crimes against persons. Defendant in the case admitted to attempting to fire bomb a synagogue to protest the shooting of a Palestinian child by the Israeli Army...

Subsidized Housing Project Attacked on Establishment Clause Grounds

Posted on April 01, 2010
The Washington Post last week reported that opposition to a government subsidized affordable housing project in Arlington County, Virginia has turned into a church-state argument. To find space for housing near the suburban D.C Metro station, the county will pay subsidies to a developer who will build apartments over the First Baptist Church of Clarendon...

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