Religion & Law

Paper Reports On Parallel Orthodox Jewish Social Service System

Posted on September 14, 2009
Saturday's Asbury Park (NJ) Press reports on the parallel system of social services maintained by the large Orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood, New Jersey: With their own judicial order, ambulance brigade, civilian patrol, school system and political force, Orthodox Jews here live, in large part, in a parallel society, with dual public services mirroring those municipal bodies that officially govern...

Moves Seek Return of 17-Year Old Convert To Ohio

Posted on September 13, 2009
Extensive press attention has been given to the case of 17-year old Rifqa Bary who last month fled her home near Columbus, Ohio after converting from Islam to Christianity. A Florida court ordered that Rifqa remain in temporary foster care with the Christian family with whom she has been placed while the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigates her allegations that her father threatened to kill her because of her conversion...

Lame Duck Hardliners In Indonesian Province Press For Strict Sharia Criminal Code

Posted on September 13, 2009
From the Brisbane Times, ABC News and the Jakarta Post this week we piece together the following story. In Indonesia's province of Aceh in 2005, separatist rebels and the government signed a peace accord after 29 years of conflict. (Background.) Four years earlier, the government had granted broad elements of autonomy to the province which proceeded to adopt a code partially enforcing Islamic law...

Court Blocks Release of Names of Referendum Petition Signers

Posted on September 13, 2009
In Washington state, a group called Protect Marriage Washington obtained enough signatures on petitions to place Referendum-71 on this fall's ballot. The Secretary of State certified the referendum earlier this month. It seeks to overturn SB 5688, Washington's recently-enacted domestic partnership law...

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Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on September 13, 2009
In Searles v. Werholtz, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 79719 (D KS, Sept. 2, 2009), a Kansas federal district court granted a prison food service provider's motion for summary judgment, finding that plaintiff had not produced evidence he was denied a properly prepared kosher diet...

British Court Allows Appeal of Order Barring Church's Anti-Gay Ad

Posted on September 13, 2009
In Belfast, Northern Ireland, the Sandown Free Presbyterian Church has been granted permission by a High Court judge to appeal a ruling against it issued in April by the U.K.'s Advertising Standards Authority. According to yesterday's Belfast Telegraph the court concluded that ASA order may have infringed the church's rights to religious belief and freedom of expression...

India's Supreme Court Orders Reconsideration of Decision on School's No-Beards Policy

Posted on September 13, 2009
On Friday, a two-judge panel of India's Supreme Court ordered reconsideration of a decision on enforcement of a Catholic schools' grooming policy that was handed down by a different panel of the Court in March (see prior posting). At issue is a Muslim student's challenge to his dismissal from Nirmala Convent Higher Secondary School because he refused to shave his beard...

Dawkins, Armstrong Debate Evolution and God In the Wall Street Journal

Posted on September 12, 2009
Under the caption Man vs. God, today's Wall Street Journal publishes a lengthy and interesting exchange between biologist Richard Dawkins and religious historian Karen Armstrong on evolution and the existence of God. Here is an excerpt from Dawkins article: Making the universe is the one thing no intelligence, however superhuman, could do, because an intelligence is complex?statistically improbable ?and therefore had to emerge, by gradual degrees, from simpler beginnings: from a lifeless universe?the miracle-free zone that is physics...

8th Circuit Says No Damage Claims Against States Under RLUIPA Prisoner Provisions

Posted on September 12, 2009
The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals has joined the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Circuits in holding that while RLUIPA's prisoner provisions are an appropriate use of Congress' spending power, states do not waive their sovereign immunity from damage claims under the Act by accepting federal prison funds...

House Resolution Marks Today's Anniversary of 9-11

Posted on September 11, 2009
The House of Representatives on Wednesday marked today's anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by passing H. Res. 722 by a vote of 416-yes; 0-no; 18-not voting. The Resolution mourns and remembers those killed on that day. It also: "asserts, in the strongest possible terms, that the fight against terrorism is not a war on any nation, any people, or any faith," and "calls on all Americans to renew their devotion to the universal ideals that make the Nation great: freedom, pluralism, equality, and the rule of law...

Appeal To Utah Supreme Court Filed By FLDS In Trust Reformation Case

Posted on September 11, 2009
Yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune reports that five members of the FLDS Church, including two of its bishops, have asked the Utah Supreme Court to review a trial court ruling that refused to permit them to intervene in proceedings brought by Utah's Attorney General to reform the United Effort Plan trust...

Ramdadan Brings Arrests For Eating In Egypt; Ridicule of Bachelors In Nigeria

Posted on September 11, 2009
For the first time this year, Egypt's Ministry of Interior has begun arresting those caught eating or drinking in public during Ramadan. Al Arabiya reported Wednesday that in the governorate of Aswan, 150 Egyptians were charged with the misdemeanor of publicly breaking the fast...

Admissions Criteria of British Jewish School Bend After Court Decision

Posted on September 11, 2009
Yesterday's London Jewish Chronicle reports that for the first time London's Jewish Free School has admitted a student who was not considered Jewish under Orthodox religious law as interpreted by the Office of Britain's Chief Rabbi. The student's mother was converted to Judaism by a rabbi from one of the non-Orthodox movements in Judaism...

Chabad Group Sues Connecticut Town Over Zoning Refusal

Posted on September 11, 2009
Yesterday's Litchfield County (CT) Times reports that a RLUIPA lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Connecticut on Wednesday by Chabad Lubavitch of Litchfield County and its rabbi, Joseph Eisenbach, challenging the refusal by the town of Litchfield to allow Chabad to restore and add onto a Victorian house on the edge of the town's Historic District...

Suit Challenges Brooklyn Housing Project As Favoring Hasidic Residents of Area

Posted on September 11, 2009
The Brooklyn Paper reported yesterday on a state court lawsuit filed in New York by a coalition of forty excluded community groups in North Brooklyn claiming religious and racially discriminatory impacts from a proposed Broadway Triangle rezoning plan...

Britain Appoints First Jewish Civilian Chaplain For Military Forces

Posted on September 10, 2009
Britain's Ministry of Defence announced Tuesday that Rabbi Arnold Saunders has been appointed the first Jewish Civilian Chaplain to the British military. He will be responsible for serving Jewish personnel in all three branches of the military services...

Plea Deal Entered In Charges of Importation of Monkey Parts

Posted on September 10, 2009
Yesterday's Staten Island (NY) Advance reports that a plea deal in federal court in New York brings to a conclusion the 3-year old case against Liberian native Mamie Manneh who had been charged with importing parts of endangered African primates without the permit required by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and failing to disclose to border officials the true nature of the product she was importing...

Suit Challenges Mississippi's Use of Religious Themes In Abstinence Teen Summits

Posted on September 10, 2009
The ACLU of Mississippi yesterday announced that it has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to end religious messages that are part of state-sponsored and state-funded "abstinence-only-until-marriage" programs. The complaint (full text) in Robinson v. Thompson, (SD MI, filed 9/9/2009), alleges that an annual teen summit held by the state to promote National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month has featured Christian prayer, religious themes and overtly Christian comments as part of speakers' presentations...

Finland Convicts City Council Member for Anti-Islam Blog Posting

Posted on September 10, 2009
A trial court in Helsinki, Finland has convicted Jussi Halla-aho, a member of Helsinki's City Council, of violating the sanctity of religion through an anti-Islamic posting on his blog last June. Today's Helsingin Sanomat reports that the court fined Halla-aho 330 Euros...

Muslim Prayer Rally Planned For D.C.; Some Christians Object

Posted on September 10, 2009
A New Jersey mosque is organizing a national prayer rally in Washington, DC on Sept. 25. Hassen Abdellah, president of Dar-ul-Islam mosque, expects 50,000, mostly Muslims, from around the country to attend the event on Capitol Hill whose focus will be a Friday prayer service at 1:00 p...

Poll On Views of Religious Similarities and Religious Discrimination Released

Posted on September 10, 2009
The Pew Forum yesterday released a poll of Americans' views of religious similarities and differences. 65% of those surveyed say that Islam is either very different or somewhat different from their own religion. 58% of those surveyed view Muslims as being subject to much discrimination...

City Council Substitutes Pledge of Allegiance For Prayer

Posted on September 10, 2009
The Freedom from Religion Foundation continues to write to city councils around the country objecting to their opening their sessions with sectarian prayers, and the cities continue to respond in various ways. In Tehachapi, California on Tuesday, City Council opened its meeting with recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance instead of the usual prayer...

Maryland Town Will Buy Land In Religious Bias Settlement

Posted on September 09, 2009
Today's Frederick (MD) News-Post reports that the town of Walkersville, Maryland has agreed in general on a settlement in a lawsuit against it brought by the owners of land that the Ahmadiyya Movement of Islam had hoped to buy to construct a mosque. In the lawsuit the seller alleged that his sale of the land was blocked by government officials and private citizens in concerted actions motivated by anti-Muslim hostility...

USCIRF Faces Some Opposition In Congress

Posted on September 09, 2009
The Washington Post yesterday reports that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom could disappear in 2011 when its current authorization sunsets. Earlier this year the Commission survived attempts to cut its funding as some in Congress think other approaches to international religious freedom would be more productive...

Lawsuit Seeks To Halt Baptist Group's National Election

Posted on September 09, 2009
In Washington, D.C. yesterday, Rev. Henry J. Lyons of Tampa, Florida filed a lawsuit attempting to enjoin Thursday's scheduled election for president of the National Baptist Convention USA-- the oldest and largest predominantly Black religious denomination in the U...

California Legislature Orders More Police Training On Dealing With Sikh Kirpan

Posted on September 09, 2009
Last week, the California legislature passed and sent to the Governor for his signature AB 504 mandating additional training materials for law enforcement officers on how to deal with Sikhs carrying kirpans. Yesterday's Oakland Tribune says that Sikhs have been arrested for wearing the kirpan-- a ceremonial dagger-- by officers who approach them in a disrespectful way and assume they have been involved in a crime...

Arizona Supreme Court Rejects Free Exercise Defense To Marijuana Charges

Posted on September 09, 2009
In State of Arizona v. Hardesty, (AZ Sup. Ct. Sept. 8, 2009), the Arizona Supreme Court rejected an atempt by a member of the Church of Cognizance to raise a defense under Arizona's Free Exercise of Religion Act to prosecution for possession of marijuana...

9th Circuit: It Was OK To Ban Ave Maria From High School Graduation Ceremony

Posted on September 09, 2009
In a 2-1 decision yesterday in Nurre v. Whitehead, (9th Cir., Sept. 8, 2009), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that school officials did not violate a student's free speech rights when they barred her from performing an instrumental version of Ave Maria at her Everett, Washington high school's graduation ceremony...

Defiant Sudanese Journalist Sentenced For Wearing Pants

Posted on September 08, 2009
In Khartoum, Sudan yesterday the high profile trial of a defiant woman journalist who is challenging the country' sharia-based laws relating to dress requirements resumed. (See prior posting.) The Los Angeles Times reports that journalist Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein was convicted of public indecency for wearing pants at an outdoor cafe...

Kentucky High School Team's Trip To Revival Raises Parental Concerns

Posted on September 08, 2009
In Breckinridge County, Kentucky, some Breckinridge County High School parents are upset about a bus trip for the football team organized last month by Coach Scott Mooney. USA Today yesterday reported that the trip to Franklin Crossroads Baptist Church included a revival at which 8 or 9 of the 20 players attending were baptized...

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