Religion & Law

Utah AG Files Proposed Settlement of UEP Trust Litigation

Posted on June 16, 2009
Yesterday Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff filed a Report of Proposed Settlement and Plan of Distribution in a Utah trial court. The proposal and accompanying Letter of Intent (Word.doc) are designed to end the litigation to reform the UEP Trust that holds property of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints Church...

Chemotherapy Helping Boy Whose Religious Objections Were Rejected By Court

Posted on June 15, 2009
According to the Mankato (MN) Free Press the court-ordered chemotherapy being administered to 13-year old Daniel Hauser has shrunk his tumor, indicating that it has not become resistant to chemotherapy. However it is still too early to determine his longer term prognosis...

Egyptian Court Refuses To Recognize Conversion of Muslim To Christianity

Posted on June 15, 2009
In Egypt on Saturday, Cairo's Administrative Court refused to order that Maher al-Moatassem Bellah al-Gohary be issued a new identification card recognizing his conversion to Christianity and his Christian name, Peter Ethnasios. AINA reports that al-Gohary converted to Christianity 34 years ago, but did not petition the court for governmental recognition until last year after Egypt's Coptic Church issued him a baptism certificate confirming his original conversion in Cyprus...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on June 15, 2009
From SSRN:Patrick McKinley Brennan, The Place of 'Higher Law' in the Quotidian Practice of Law: Herein of Practical Reason, Natural Law, Natural Rights, and Sex Toys, (Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, Forthcoming).Bailey H. Kuklin, The Natures of Universal Moralities, (Brooklyn Law Review, Forthcoming)...

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China Cancels Licenses of 21 Human Rights Lawyers

Posted on June 15, 2009
ChinaAid today says that the government of China has cancelled or refused to renew the licenses of at least 21 human rights attorneys. Many of the attorneys involved have worked on religious freedom cases in China. Human rights attorneys in China have taken the unusual step of requesting international pressure against the government.

3 Cases From South Asia Involve Killing of Christians

Posted on June 14, 2009
From South Asia comes three stories of murder of Christians impelled by religious fanaticism. In Kathmandu, Nepal, police have arrested 27-year old Sita Shrestha. Bos News today reports that the woman confessed to planting a bomb in the Church of the Assumption, a Roman Catholic Church near Kathmandu, on May 23...

Permanent Injunction Issued To Protect Christian Gay Pride Protesters

Posted on June 14, 2009
Last year a Missouri federal district court issued a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of a St. Louis city ordinance that prohibits distribution of literature in public parks. The lawsuit was brought by a Christian ministry and individuals connected with who who were prevented from handing out religious literature and expressing religious beliefs during the 2006 gay pride festival...

Diocese Seeks Reconsideration of Court Order To Release Documents

Posted on June 14, 2009
According to the New York Times, on Friday the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport asked the Connecticut Supreme Court to reconsider its 4-1 decision from last month ordering the release some 12,600 pages of documents filed in 23 cases alleging sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy...

Texas Board of Education Appoints Social Science Review Panel-- Half Christian Conservatives

Posted on June 14, 2009
According to Dan Quinn of the Texas Freedom Network, writing last week at Talk to Action, the Texas State Board of Education has now made public the entire panel of experts it has appointed to review the state's social studies curriculum. It is evenly divided between mainstream academics and Christian religious conservatives...

Faith-Based Critic Joins White House Task Force Looking At Reform

Posted on June 14, 2009
Interfaith Alliance president Welton Gaddy--a critic of the White House's faith-based office-- has been invited to become a member of the White House Task Force that is studying ways to reform the Office on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Dan Gilgoff (US News) interviewed Gaddy, who said in part: I have thought all along it would be best not to have such an office, and I still have that opinion...

Time Profiles Public Opinion About Mormons

Posted on June 13, 2009
The June 22 issue of Time Magazine carries an article titled The Storm Over the Mormons. Here is an excerpt: The passage of [California's] Prop 8 was the church's latest display of its power: individual Mormons contributed half of the proposition's $40 million war chest despite constituting only 2% of California's population...

Rev. Wright Apologizes For Remarks About Jews

Posted on June 12, 2009
The Washington Post reports that Rev. Jeremiah Wright says he misspoke Wednesday (see prior posting) when he referred to "them Jews" who, he charged, blocked his access to President Barack Obama. He says he meant to refer to Zionists. He apologized, saying he meant no ill-will to the Obama administration or the American Jewish community...

Belarus Continues To Act Against Unregistered Churches

Posted on June 12, 2009
Forum 18 yesterday reported on the ongoing battles between the government and unregistered churches in Belarus. The Council of Churches Baptist refuses to accept registration requirements. Baptist Nikolai Poleshchuk was fined the equivalent of $745 (US) for running a Christian street library-- apparently the largest fine yet imposed for this type of violation...

Hindu Leader Opposes Planned USCIRF Trip To India

Posted on June 12, 2009
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is planning to visit India this month, with a particular focus on past violence against Christians in the state of Orissa and Hindu-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002. Christians have welcomed the upcoming visit...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on June 12, 2009
In Soder v. Williamson, (3d Cir., June 5, 2009), the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a prisoner's lawsuit that alleged, among other things, that his free exercise rights were violated when he had to wait 24 days for a chest x-ray after refusing for religious reasons to have a TB test by injection...

Spain Considering Creating Religiously Neutral Public Spaces

Posted on June 12, 2009
CNA reported last week that Spain's ruling Socialist government is considering eliminating religious symbols in military barracks, hospitals, jails and public schools, as well as during State funerals or inauguration ceremonies for public officials. Minister of Justice Francisco Caamano suggested the move as part of an attempt to create "religiously neutral public spaces...

Indiana Church Wins Tax Exemption Appeal

Posted on June 11, 2009
St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in Schererville, Indiana has prevailed in the Indiana Tax Court in its attempt to obtain a religious purposes tax exemption for a Cultural Center it built in 2001. In Lake County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals v...

Texas Court Finds No Jurisdicion In Defamation Suit Against Church and Its Pastor

Posted on June 11, 2009
In In re Rick Godwin, (TX Ct. App., June 10, 2009), a Texas state appellate court applied the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine to find that civil courts lack jurisdiction over actions for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and fraud brought by a former member of Eagle's Nest Christian Fellowship Church against the church and its pastor Rick Godwin...

California Court Says Episcopal Church Owns Break-Away Parish's Property

Posted on June 11, 2009
In Huber v. Jackson, (CA Ct. App., June 9, 2009), a California appellate court held that the Episcopal Church and its Diocese of Los Angeles are the owners of the property of St. Luke's parish. The congregants of St. Luke's voted in 2006 to break away from the Episcopal Church and affiliate with the more conservative Anglican Church of Uganda...

House Subcommittee Holds Hearings On China's Persecution of Uighurs

Posted on June 11, 2009
Yesterday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee held a hearing on on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight held hearings on "The Uighurs: A History of Persecution." Uighus are Muslims who live in China's East Turkestan, and have been the subject of cultural and religious oppression by the Chinese Communists...

Idaho Group Circulating Petition To Get Vote On Bible Course In Schools

Posted on June 11, 2009
In Idaho, a group calling itself Our Godly American Heritage is circulating an initiative petition seeking to get a proposed state constitutional amendment on the ballot. Tuesday's Idaho Statesman reports that the "Initiative Allowing School Boards to Permit the Bible to be Studied as Literature and for its Influence on History" would provide that school boards could offer elective non-doctrinal classes that focus on the Bible...

Ohio Science Teacher Sues School Board For Religious Discrimination

Posted on June 11, 2009
Mt. Vernon, Ohio science teacher, John Freshwater, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city school district's board of education and various school officials, alleging that attempts to fire him were prompted by the fact that he kept his personal Bible on his desk...

Obama's Former Pastor Says Jews, AIPAC Have Too Much Influence Over President

Posted on June 11, 2009
The Newport News (VA) Daily Press yesterday reported on a short, but controversial, interview by one of its reporters with Barack Obama's former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama publicly broke with Wright and his Trinity United Church Of Christ in May 2008 after he earlier criticized remarks made by Wright...

Secretary of State Meets With USCIRF Members

Posted on June 10, 2009
On Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to receive their 2009 Annual Report (see prior posting) and discuss with them issues of religious freedom and religious expression...

Graduating Class Protests Consent Decree With Lord's Prayer

Posted on June 10, 2009
In early May, a Florida federal district court approved a consent decree in Doe v. School Board for Santa Rosa County, Florida which among other things enjoined school officials from authorizing or including prayers as part of school events, including graduation ceremonies...

Singapore Court Sentences Christian Couple To 8 Weeks In Jail For Distributing Gospel Tracts

Posted on June 10, 2009
Both the Taiwan News and the Straits Times today report on the 8-week jail sentence imposed by a court in Singapore on a Christian couple convicted last month in the country's first full trial under the Sedition Act. Ong Kian Cheng and his wife Dorothy Chan Hien Leng were charged with giving copies of Christian publications titled "The Little Bride" and "Who is Allah?" to Muslims who were offended by them...

Shoe Bomber On Prison Hunger Strike Over Religious Restrictions

Posted on June 10, 2009
World Bulletin reports that convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid, in prison in a Supermax facility in Colorado, is on a hunger strike in protest over alleged refusals to permit him to practice his Islamic faith. Reid, convicted in 2003, has filed a federal lawsuit over prison restrictions and has been refusing food for several weeks...

Some German States Resist Jehovah's Witnesses Push For Recognition

Posted on June 10, 2009
Spiegel Online today reports on efforts by the Jehovah's Witnesses in Germany to obtain legal recognition in various German states as a "public law corporation." According to Country Reports. org, this status entitles a religious group "to name prison, hospital and military chaplains, and to levy a tithe (averaging 9 percent of income tax) on its members that the state collects...

AU Complains To IRS About Church's Endorsement of Gubernatorial Candidate

Posted on June 09, 2009
Americans United announced yesterday that it has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether Richmond, Virginia's Fifth Street Baptist Church violated tax rules relating to non-profits by endorsing a gubernatorial candidate. AU wrote the IRS (full text of letter) calling its attention to a Washington Post article indicating that the church's pastor allowed candidate Brian Moran to speak during church services on June 7, just before the primary election...

10th Cirucit Holds 10 Commandments Monument Violates Establishment Clause

Posted on June 09, 2009
In Green v. Haskell County Board of Commissioners, (10th Cir., June 8, 2009), the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a display of a Ten Commandments monument on the lawn of the county courthouse in Stigler, Oklahoma, violated the Establishment Clause...

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