Religion & Law

Lawsuit Claims "Local Option" Use Violates Civil Rights Act

Posted on March 16, 2011
An organization calling itself the Ethereal Enigmatic Euphoric Movement Toward Civilized Hedonism filed a lawsuit in federal court in Idaho last week challenging Idaho's local option statute (Idaho Stat. Sec. 23-917) that allows residents of a city to vote to ban the sale of liquor by the drink...

Catholic Cardinal Criticizes UK Foreign Aid Plans As Anti-Christian

Posted on March 16, 2011
The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, critized Britain's plans to increase foreign aid to Pakistan. He said:To increase aid to the Pakistan government when religious freedom is not upheld and those who speak up for religious freedom are gunned down is tantamount to an anti-Christian foreign policy...

Justice Department Sues California Under RLUIPA On Behalf of Sikh Inmate

Posted on March 16, 2011
The U.S. Department of Justice announced yesterday that it has filed a RLUIPA lawsuit against the state of California and its prison system after concluding that the state's inmate grooming policy violates the rights of a Sikh prisoner. Sukhjinder S. Basra, an inmate at the California Men?s Colony in San Luis Obispo, has been punished by prison officials for wearing a beard as required by his religious beliefs...

Harvard Law Prof. William Stuntz Dies

Posted on March 16, 2011
In a tribute to "an examined life of thoughtfulness and grace", Harvard Law School yesterday announced that renowned criminal justice scholar and beloved teacher William Stuntz died on March 14 after a long battle with cancer. At a conference last year, one participant described Prof...

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Anti-Abortion Demonstrator Loses Damage Action Against Park Service Officers On Qualified Immunity Grounds

Posted on March 15, 2011
Michael Marcavage, director of Repent America, has lost in his attempt to recover damages from National Park Service officers who required him to end the 2007 anti-abortion rally he was conducting in front of the entrance to Philadelphia's Liberty Bell Center and told him he could demonstrate only in a nearby area that was designated a First Amendment area under Independence National Historical Park regulations...

Jewish Prayers On Board Plane Lead To Security Scare

Posted on March 15, 2011
CNN reports that three Orthodox Jewish businessmen praying on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles on Sunday triggered a security alert. Passengers became alarmed when the three began praying out loud "in a language other than Spanish" shortly after takeoff...

Indian Court Says Trustees Cannot Exclude Zoroastrian Priests From Tower of Silence

Posted on March 15, 2011
In India last week, the Bombay High Court ruled that trustees of the Parsi Panchayet Funds and Properties do not have the authority to bar two duly ordained Zoroastrian priests from performing religious rites at the Malabar Hill Tower of Silence and two fire temples...

School's Prayer Service To Encourage Performance On Standardized Tests Is Questioned

Posted on March 15, 2011
The Baltimore Sun this week reports on the church-state questions that have been raised by the attempts at Baltimore's Tench Tilghman Elementary/Middle School to raise the performance of students on statewide standardized tests.  In preparation for the Maryland School Assessments this year and last, the school has held a 30-minute prayer service to culminate special Saturday test preparation classes...

Court Explores Catholic Doctrines For End of Life Decisions

Posted on March 14, 2011
Matter of Zornow, (NY Sup. Ct., Dec. 23, 2010, posted March 2, 2011), involves a dispute between siblings over whether their mother, an Alzheimers patient in a nursing home, should be denied artificially administered food and water when the statutory conditions for doing so would permit such a decision to be made...

India Shia Personal Law Board Takes Action Against Domestic Abuse, Polygamy

Posted on March 14, 2011
According to India Today, the All India Shia Personal Law Board is taking action to counter the growing problem of domestic violence. It will ostracize men who beat their wives and will create a help line for victims.  The Board also expressed concern with polygamy, saying that the dowry that goes to the man's family is the main cause of the practice...

Recent Articles Of Interest

Posted on March 14, 2011
From SSRN:Shoaib A. Ghias, Translation of Murawwaja Isl?m? Baynk?r? awr Jamh?r ?Ulam? kay Mawqaf k? Khul??a (A Collective Fatwa Against Islamic Banking) , (March 4, 2011).Michael A. Helfand, Religious Arbitration and the New Multiculturalism: Negotiating Conflicting Legal Orders, (New York University Law Review, Forthcoming)...

Recent Prisoner Free Excercise Cases

Posted on March 13, 2011
In Miles v. Moore, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21753 (ED VA, March 3, 2011), a Virginia federal district court dismissed a challenge to a prison rule that only allowed changes once each quarter in the list of prisoners who could attend religious services. This delayed plaintiff's restoration to the list after he had been dropped during a period of administrative segregation...

Dalai Lama To Transfer His Political Power To Elected Official

Posted on March 13, 2011
AP reports that the Dalai Lama will give up his political role in the Tibetan government-in-exile and will turn that formal role over to an elected leader.  The Dalai Lama said he will propose amendments to the constitution of the government-in-exile at its session that begins this week in Dharmsala, India...

New Review of Religious Tolerance At Air Force Academy To Be Undertaken

Posted on March 12, 2011
AP reported yesterday that a retired Air Force general will conduct a review of the religious climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy . The Academy has been at the center of charges of religious intolerance for the past seven years. General Patrick K. Gamble, now president of the University of Alaska, will assemble a team of five or six members to take an "independent, subjective look at the overall climate at USAFA relating to free exercise of religion...

Maryland House Fails To Pass Same Sex Marriage Bill After Religious Opposition

Posted on March 12, 2011
Baptist Press reports that Maryland's House of Delegates yesterday voted to send the pending same-sex marriage bill back to committee after the leadership determined that they lacked the votes to pass it.  The Maryland Senate passed the bill last month (see prior posting), and it was expected that the House would also pass it...

Defendant's Absence From Trial For Religious Reasons Held To Be Voluntary Waiver

Posted on March 11, 2011
In Eubanks v. Lempke, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23642 (SD NY, Feb. 22, 2011), a New York federal district court denied a habeas corpus petition filed by Isaac Eubanks, a Muslim, who was absent from his state court trial for religious reasons on the Friday when the jury returned with its verdict convicting him of robbery and possession of stolen property...

Chechnya Criticized For Imposing Islamic Dress Code on Women

Posted on March 11, 2011
Human Rights Watch yesterday released a report titled You Dress According to Their Rules: Enforcement of an Islamic Dress Code for Women in Chechnya (full text). Here is a summary from the text of the report:This report describes violence and threats against women in Chechnya to intimidate them into adhering to a compulsory Islamic dress code...

Interfaith Leaders Criticize House Hearings On Radicalization of Muslims

Posted on March 11, 2011
Twenty-six religious leaders-- Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh-- yesterday issued a statement (full text) criticizing U.S. Rep. Peter King's hearing on the radicalization of American Muslims. The statement reads in part:We urge the members of our government as well as citizens of good will to refrain from passing judgment on religious or faith groups based on the actions of the few who pervert their spiritual traditions through acts of violence and hostile rhetoric...

Fired Nurse Sues Catholic Hospital For Defamation

Posted on March 11, 2011
The San Antonio Express-News reports on a defamation lawsuit against a Catholic hospital that went to trial yesterday in a Bexar County (TX) trial court. Tammy Perez is a devout Catholic who was formerly employed as a nurse by Christus Santa Rosa Health System...

House Will Defend DOMA In Court

Posted on March 11, 2011
House Speaker John Boehner announced Wednesday that after consultation with the Bipartisan Leadership Advisory Group, he has directed the House General Counsel to initiate a legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act.  Boehner had announced last week that he was convening the Advisory Group after the Obama administration decided that it would no longer defend DOMA's constitutionality...

5th Circuit: Disciplinary Exclusion of High School Student Did Not Violate His Free Exercise Rights

Posted on March 10, 2011
In C.H. II v. Rankin County School District, (5th Cir., March 4, 2011), the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a high school student's claim that his free exercise rights were violated by disciplinary action taken against him in connection with an auto body class...

U.S. Calls For Egypt To Prosecute Perpetrators In This Week's Muslim-Christian Violence

Posted on March 10, 2011
AFP reports that in Egypt on Tuesday violence broke out between Muslims and Christians in a working class district of Cairo as 1000 Christians protested the burning of a Coptic Christian church last week. Ultimately 13 people-- 7 of them Copts-- were killed in the ensuing fighting, while 140 people were injured...

Philadelphia Archdiocese Suspends 21 Accused Priests

Posted on March 10, 2011
In the wake of a February grand jury report criticizing the procedures employed by the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia in dealing with priests accused of sexually abusing minors (see prior posting), the Archdiocese announced on Tuesday that it has placed 21 priests on leave...

Chicago Faith-Based Foster Care Agencies Could Lose Funding For Refusing To Place Children With Same-Sex Couples

Posted on March 10, 2011
The Windy City Times reported yesterday that the recent passage of a same-sex civil union law by the state of Illinois (see prior posting) complicates the question of whether to permit faith-based foster care agencies that contract with the state to refuse to place foster children with same-sex couples...

Report Charges Anti-Islamic Bias In Training of Law Enforcement and Security Personnel

Posted on March 10, 2011
Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank, on Tuesday released a report (executive summary ) titled  Manufacturing the Muslim Menace: Private Firms, Public Servants and the Threat to Rights and Security ( full text).  The lengthy report charges that local, state and federal government agencies fail to adequately monitor the quality of preparedness training provided to their law enforcement and domestic security employees by private vendors...

Minnesota Trial Court Upholds State's Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

Posted on March 10, 2011
On Monday, a Hennepin County, Minnesota state court judge rejected a constitutional challenge to Minnesota's law that bars same-sex marriage. Tuesday's Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the trial court relied on a 1971 Minnesota Supreme Court decision-- Baker v...

State AG Challenge To Bush Era Conscience Rules Dropped Because of Revisions

Posted on March 10, 2011
A lawsuit filed in 2009 by a coalition of state attorneys general challenging the health care provider conscience rules promulgated by the Bush administration was dropped last week.  According to BNA Daily Report for Executives, the suit originally filed by the Connecticut attorney general and then joined by others was dropped because a Feb...

Suit Challenges Ban on Student's Distribution of Church Christmas Party Flyer

Posted on March 09, 2011
Last week, a federal court lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Cresco, Pennsylvania 5th grader who was barred by her school's principal from handing out to fellow students flyers inviting them to a Christmas party sponsored by her church.  The complaint (full text) in K...

Suit Challenges Zoning Denial For Electronic Bible Verse Sign

Posted on March 09, 2011
On Monday a lawsuit was filed in federal district court against Chichester, New Hampshire by a non-profit organization that displays Christian scriptures on road signs on busy commuter streets. The complaint (full text) in Signs for Jesus v. Town of Chichester, (D NH, filed 3/7/2011), challenges the denial by the town's Planning Board of site plan approval for the display of an electronic message sign carrying Bible verses...

Vatican UN Representative Encourages Religious Freedom

Posted on March 09, 2011
Zenit reports on the address on religious freedom given last week at the United Nations Human Rights Council by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, permanent representative of the Holy See to the U.N. offices in Geneva. Citing a study that says 75% of those killed because of religious hatred are Christians, Tomasi urged that states have a responsibility to create an environment that encourages religious freedom...

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