Religion & Law

British Tribunal Says Catholic Adoption Agency Policy Violates Equality Act

Posted on June 03, 2009
In Catholic Care (Diocese of Leeds) v. Charity Commission for England and Wales, (Charity Trib., June 1, 2009), Britain's Charity Tribunal has held that a Catholic adoption agency is violating the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 by refusing to furnish adoption services to same-sex couples...

Obama Issues LGBT Pride Month Proclamation

Posted on June 03, 2009
Baptist Press reports that many evangelicals are unhappy that President Barack Obama on Monday issued a Proclamation (full text) proclaiming June 2009 as "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month." The proclamation notes that this year is the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, a clash with New York police that is generally seen as the start of the gay rights movement...

Ireland Will Seek More Victim Compensation From Catholic Orders

Posted on June 03, 2009
After last month's release in Ireland of a massive report on child sexual abuse over decades at Catholic institutions (see prior posting), the Irish government says that it will seek a larger share of the 1.2 billion Euros that will ultimately be paid to victims from the 18 religious orders named in the report...

Court Refuses To Enjoin Graduation In Church Building

Posted on June 03, 2009
Yesterday in Does v. Elmbrook Joint Common School District No. 21, (ED WI, June 2, 2009), a Wisconsin federal district court refused to grant a preliminary injunction to bar two Wisconsin high schools from holding their graduation ceremonies in a church building...

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Fiji Orders Methodists To Cancel Annual Conference

Posted on June 03, 2009
AFP reported earlier this week that the military government in Fiji has ordered the Methodist Church-- Fiji's largest religious group-- to cancel its annual conference scheduled for August. A joint statement by the military and police said the church is trying create instability in the country...

Russian Trial Reflects Split Between Young Muslims and Establishment

Posted on June 03, 2009
Today's New York Times reports on a trial taking place in Kazan, the capital of Russia's Muslim Tatarstan region. Twelve defendants are charged with being members of Hizbut Tahrir, a fundamentalist Islamic organization that, among other things, wants to create an Islamic Caliphate...

Summum Seeks Dismissal of Its 7 Aphorisms Monument Challenge

Posted on June 03, 2009
Last March, after the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum that Pleasant Grove City, Utah need not acccept a "Seven Aphorisms" monument for a local park, it remanded to the lower courts for further consideration a more complicated companion case, Summum v...

Obama's Outreach To Muslims Begins With TV Interview Before Leaving

Posted on June 03, 2009
President Obama has arrived in Saudi Arabia to begin his 5-day trip to the Middle East and Europe. As reported by BBC News today, Obama hopes the trip will signal a new dialogue with the Muslim world. Tomorrow he delivers a major speech from Cairo University...

3rd Circuit Says School Can Bar Bible Reading At Kindergarten "Show and Tell"

Posted on June 02, 2009
In Busch v. Marple Newton School District, (3d Cir., June 1, 2009), the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, upheld a Pennsylvania elementary school's restriction that barred a kindergartner's mother from reading aloud from the Bible as part of a "show and tell" activity in her son's classroom...

Oregon Passes Bill To Require Reasonable Religious Accommodation For Employees

Posted on June 02, 2009
Yesterday's Mid-Willamette Valley (OR) Statesman Journal reports that Oregon's legislature has passed and is about to transmit to the governor SB 786, the Oregon Workplace Religious Freedom Act. The new law requires employers to reasonably accommodate employees' religious practices and observances...

Liberty Counsel Files IRS Complaint Against Americans United

Posted on June 02, 2009
Yesterday, Liberty Counsel filed an 11-page letter, along with another 11 pages of exhibits, (full text) with the IRS seeking to have it investigate Americans United for Separation of Church and State. (Liberty Counsel press release.) Pointing to AU's recent complaint to the IRS about Liberty University (see prior posting), the letter asks the IRS to:(1) enjoin AU from continuing its intolerable waste of tax dollars through its barrage of unwarranted IRS complaints and subsequent investigations; (2) enjoin AU from continuing its abusive attacks and selective harassment of conservative churches, groups and related organizations; (3) enjoin AU from continuing its campaign of misrepresentation to the public of the political climate in relation to the conservative church and related groups; and (4) investigate the partisan pattern of filing complaints and the partisan activities of AU to determine whether such abuses represent illegal activities that jeopardize its current tax-exempt 501(c)(3) incorporation...

Former Alabama C.J. Roy Moore Announces For Governor's Race

Posted on June 02, 2009
Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore yesterday announced that he is running for Governor of Alabama in the 2010 election. AP says that the announcement came on the first day that candidates can begin to raise money for the 2010 election...

Lawyer In Case Praises Sotomayor's 1993 "Menorah" Decision

Posted on June 02, 2009
In yesterday's Jerusalem Post, lawyer Nathan Lewin describes the case he won in White Plains, New York in 1993, representing a Chabad rabbi who wished to display a large menorah during Hanukkah at one of the city's two major parks. The decision in Flamer v...

USCIRF Asks Obama To Raise Religious Freedom Issues In Saudi Arabia, Egypt

Posted on June 01, 2009
This Thursday, President Obama will be in Egypt. From Cairo, he will deliver a major speech reaching out to the Muslim world. (Wall Street Journal.) Last week, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom sent letters (full text) to the President urging him to use the speech to stress the importance of protecting religious rights of minority religions in Muslim countries...

Tiller Murder May Impact Sotomayor Hearings

Posted on June 01, 2009
Some anti-abortion leaders fear that the murder of Dr. George Tiller at his church yesterday will impact hearings on the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. AP reports that activists fear backlash to the killing will stifle anti-abortion viewpoints being expressed in the questioning of Sotomayor by the Senate Judiciary Committee...

Dutch Cabinet Will Not Move To Repeal Blasphemy Law

Posted on June 01, 2009
The National Secular Society reported Friday that the Dutch cabinet has decided not to move ahead with its earlier plans to repeal the country's blasphemy law. (See prior posting.) The cabinet now believes that other laws are inadequate after the Netherlands Supreme Court in March overturned the conviction of a man charged with hanging a poster in his window reading: "Stop the tumour that is Islam...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on June 01, 2009
From SSRN:Zachary R. Calo, Catholic Social Thought, Political Liberalism, and the Idea of Human Rights, (May 19, 2009).From Bepress:Steven Goldberg, Does the Wall Still Stand? The Implications of Transhumanism for the Separation of Church and State, (May 22, 2009)...

Texas Senate Rejects Creationist As Chairman of State Board of Education

Posted on May 31, 2009
The Texas state Senate on Thursday rejected the governor's nomination of Republican Don McLeroy to be chairman of the State Board of Education, according to yesterday's Dallas Morning News. McLeroy is currently serving as chairman under an interim appointment...

Connecticut Diocese Sues To Avoid Registration As Lobbyist

Posted on May 31, 2009
The Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against Connecticut's Office of State Ethics seeking to enjoin the Office from taking action to force the Diocese to register with the state as a lobbyist. Catholic Online reports that the state ethics office wrote the Diocese raising questions after the Diocese took part in a rally in March opposing Raised Bill 1098 that would have forced reorganization of financial oversight in Catholic parishes (see prior posting)...

Israeli Court Orders American Husband To Grant Wife A Religious Divorce

Posted on May 31, 2009
In Israel, a Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court has for the first time imposed sanctions on a man who is not a citizen of Israel to force him to grant his wife a religious divorce (a "get"). Thursday's Jerusalem Post reported on the case-- a divorce proceeding of an American couple that had been dragging on for six years...

10th Circuit Rejects Valedictorian's Challenge To Limits On Her Religious Remarks

Posted on May 31, 2009
In Corder v. Lewis Palmer School District No. 38, (10th Cir., May 29, 2009), the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected constitutional claims brought by a high school valedictorian who delivered remarks at a high school's graduation ceremony encouraging students to accept Jesus Christ...

Church In Zoning Dispute Wants City Held In Contempt of 2006 Order

Posted on May 31, 2009
Friday's Miami Herald reports on a new religious zoning dispute in Hollywood, Florida. In a 2006 settlement of federal court litigation with Chabad Lubavitch, the city was ordered to enact a new Special Exception ordinance for places of worship, with narrow, objective and definite zoning standards to guide city officials...

Indian Court Says It Can Decide What Are Basic Tenets of a Religion

Posted on May 31, 2009
In India, the High Court of Punjab and Haryana in Kaur v. State of Punjab, (High Ct. P&H, May 30, 2009), upheld the decision of a Medical College to refuse to admit petitioners under the quota set aside for members of the Sikh minority community because the applicants did not observe a major tenet of the Sikh religion-- keeping their hair unshorn...

County Backs Off Controversial Zoning Citation Against Bible-Study Group Meetings

Posted on May 31, 2009
A land use citation issued by the San Diego County Department of Planning and Land Use has generated a swirl of protest. As reported last week by the Christian Examiner and the San Diego Union-Tribune, Paster David Jones and his wife hold weekly Bible study sessions at their home...

Two Employment Discrimination Cases-- One Settled, One Filed

Posted on May 31, 2009
Two cases involving religious discrimination in employment are in the news. On May 28, the EEOC announced the entry of a consent decree in a lawsuit it filed in New Jersey federal district court against the oil company, ConocoPhillips. The company had required Clarence Taylor, a pipe fitter at its refinery, to work a schedule that would cause him to miss his Sunday church services for two months...

Wikipedia Arbitrators Ban Scientology Edits

Posted on May 31, 2009
The online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which normally invites the public to edit encyclopedia entries, has imposed a ban on editorial input from all IP addresses owned or operated by the Church of Scientology or its affiliates. The Register and OS News report on the decision (full text) handed down by Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee on May 28...

In Netherland v. City of Zachary,

Posted on May 30, 2009
In Netherland v. City of Zachary, Louisiana, (MD LA, May 27, 2009), in a case on remand from the 5th Circuit (see prior posting), a Louisiana federal district court held that a city's disturbing the peace ordinance was unconstitutional as applied to defendant's religious speech...

Challenge To National Day of Prayer Survives Dismissal Motion

Posted on May 30, 2009
In Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc. v. Obama, (WD WI, May 26, 2009), a Wisconsin federal district court refused to dismiss on the pleadings a challenge to the constitutionality of the National Day of Prayer. The court said that defendants' arguments are better raised in a summary judgment motion once the record is developed further...

Court Refuses To Dismiss Establishment Clause Challenge To AIG Bailout

Posted on May 28, 2009
In Murray v. Geithner, (ED MI, May 26, 2009), a Michigan federal district court refused to dismiss a taxpayer's Establishment Clause challenge to the federal government's expenditure of $40 billion under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act to rescue the giant insurance company, AIG...

Alberta Assembly Set To Pass Parental Rights Provisions

Posted on May 28, 2009
According to yesterday's Edmonton (AB) Journal, after debate extending into the early hours of Wednesday morning, Alberta's Legislative Assembly approved on its second reading Bill 44, the Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Amendment Act, 2009...

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