Religion & Law

Air Force Officer Cleared In Inspirational E-mail Investigation

Posted on April 03, 2009
Stars and Stripes reported Wednesday that the Air Force has cleared Col. Kimberly Toney of violating Air force policy requiring religious neutrality. Toney sent an e-mail to thousands of personnel in her 501st Combat Support Wing in Europe urging them to view an inspirational video on Catholic website...

Judges Nominated For 4th and 2nd Circuit Vacancies

Posted on April 03, 2009
Yesterday the White House announced that nominations for two vacant circuit judgeships have been submitted to the Senate. AP, reporting on the nominations, says that there are currently 17 vacancies on federal appeals courts.Maryland U.S. District Court Judge Andre M...

Files On Clergy Sexual Abuse Ordered Released, Implementing Settlement

Posted on April 03, 2009
Implementing a 2006 settlement with 25 victims in a clergy sexual abuse case, yesterday a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ordered the Franciscans to release hundreds of pages of personnel files and other documents. AP reports that Judge Peter D. Lichtman ordered the release to be made within 21 days, after ruling on specific documents where objections to public release were raised...

Lighted Cross On City Fire Tower Is Center of Dispute

Posted on April 03, 2009
In Reading, Pennsylvania, for at least 50 years the city has displayed a large lighted cross on the city-owned Fire Tower during the Easter season, and a lighted star at Christmas. Now, according to reports in the Reading Eagle and WPVI News, the ACLU and the Appignani Humanist Legal Center wrote the city's mayor threatening to sue if the light grid was turned on this year...

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Suit Against FAA By Employee Disciplined for Remarks About Gays Is Settled

Posted on April 03, 2009
A settlement stipulation (full text) has been filed with a Georgia federal district court in Dombrowski v. Federal Aviation Administration. The lawsuit, originally filed in 2006, alleges that the FAA violated a supervisory employee's speech, equal protection and due process rights, as well as his rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, when it suspended plaintiff without pay for 10 days because of conversations he had with non-supervisory employees about religious denominations and about his views on homosexuality...

Some Allegations Are Struck In Sex Abuse Suits Against Diocese

Posted on April 03, 2009
In four decisions on motions to strike portions of the pleadings in pending sexual abuse lawsuits against the Hartford Catholic Diocese, a Connecticut trial court has concluded that most of the allegations can be decided by applying neutral tort principles...

Historic Landmark Limits Are Not Substantial Burden Under RLUIPA

Posted on April 03, 2009
In Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church v. City of Peoria, Illinois, (CD IL, March 31, 2009), an Illinois federal district court rejected a church's RLUIPA claim. The Church, some years ago, purchased an adjacent building which was subsequently designated as an historic landmark...

Iowa Supreme Court Invalidates Ban On Same-Sex Marriage

Posted on April 03, 2009
Today Iowa joined Connecticut and Massachusetts in recognizing same-sex marriage. In Varnum v. Brien, (IA Sup. Ct., April 3, 2009), the Iowa Supreme Court held that the Iowa statute (IC Sec. 595.2) that limits marriage to unions between opposite-sex partners violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution (Art...

Court Enjoins Georgia's Ban on Sex Offenders As Church Volunteers

Posted on April 02, 2009
In Whitaker v. Perdue, (ND GA, March 30, 2009), a Georgia federal district court issued a preliminary injunction to prevent enforcement of provisions in Georgia's sex offender law to the extent that it restricts registered sex offenders from engaging in volunteer activities at churches...

Ismaili Muslims Not A "Race" Under Section 1981

Posted on April 02, 2009
In Wilson v. Pepsi Bottling Group, (ND GA, March 30, 2009), a Georgia federal district court held that 42 USC Sec. 1981 was not violated when an association of convenience store owners limited its membership to Ismaili Muslims. Section 1981, enacted in the post-Civil War period, applies to racial discrimination in making or enforcing contracts...

Prayer At Community Policing Meetings Did Not Violate Establishment Clause

Posted on April 02, 2009
The Chicago (IL) police force, as part of its community policing efforts, holds regular "beat meetings" between police officers and community members in various neighborhoods so police and citizens can exchange information and discuss crime problems. In Kaplan v...

Consent Decrees Entered In EEOC Cases On Behalf of Muslim Workers

Posted on April 02, 2009
TMC News yesterday reported that a a Minnesota federal magistrate judge has given final approval to consent decrees settling two related cases involving failure to accommodate religous needs of Muslim workers employed by, or seeking employment with, a chicken producer with plants in Minnesota and Wisconsin...

5th Circuit Hears Arguments On Santeria Slaughter Ban

Posted on April 02, 2009
Yesterday, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Merced v. City of Euless (recording of full arguments). In the case, a Texas federal district court upheld a decision by the the City of Euless to deny Jose Merced a permit to sacrifice a goat...

Arizona Trespass Conviction Challenges Authority of Utah To Reform FLDS Trust

Posted on April 02, 2009
Yesterday's Deseret News reports on new legal complications in the ongoing attempt by a Utah court to restructure the United Effort Plan Trust that owns the land and homes of Fundamentalist LDS Church members in Colorado City, AZ and Hildale, UT. (See prior posting...

Court Says Curfew Law Infringes Free Exercise, Speech Rights

Posted on April 02, 2009
In State of Idaho v. Doe, (ID Ct. App., March 31, 2009), an Idaho appellate court held that Wendell, Idaho's juvenile curfew ordinance is unconstitutionally overbroad. Upholding a facial challenge to the law, the court said that:by restricting minors' access to all public places during curfew hours, the ordinance severely inhibits the ability of minors to exercise their First Amendment rights for one-quarter of the day...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on April 02, 2009
In Thompson v. Williams, (9th Cir., March 26, 2009), the 9th Circuit rejected a prisoner's free exercise, RLUIPA and equal protection challenges to authorities' refusal to provide him with a Halal, or in the alternative a kosher, diet.In Daly v. Davis, 2009 U...

US Will Seek Seat on UN Human Rights Council

Posted on April 01, 2009
In a statement yesterday, the U.S. State Department announced that the United States this year will run for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council. Describing the decision as part of the Obama administration's "new era of engagement", the U...

Court Rejects Jewish Man's Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Charges

Posted on April 01, 2009
In Hummasti v. Ali, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25433 (D OR, March 23, 2009), an Oregon federal district court rejected, largely for lack of evidence, a rather outlandish set of RICO, conspiracy and discrimination allegations by a former Portland State University student who was operating an unlicensed food kiosk outside the courthouse in Portland, Oregon...

Air Force Institutes Scholarship Program To Train Chaplains

Posted on April 01, 2009
The Air Force has announced the creation of a new religious professional scholarship program, designed to train chaplains in faiths where, at any particular time, there is a shortage of Air Force chaplains Air Force Link reported Monday that the program is open to any commissioned officer or anyone currently enrolled in a commissioning program, such as the Air Force Academy or ROTC...

Former NFL Coach Invited Onto President's Faith-Based Council

Posted on April 01, 2009
Yesterday's Muncie (IN) Star Press reports that President Barack Obama has invited former NFL Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy to serve as a member of the Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Dungy, author of two books focusing on Christian values, has been in involved with numerous charitable causes...

Court Accepts Plea Deal With "Resurrection Clause" In It

Posted on April 01, 2009
Yesterday's Baltimore Sun reports on an odd plea agreement entered by 22-year old Ria Ramkissoon, a member of a religious cult called 1 Mind Ministries. The cult's leader, Queen Antoinette, is accused of ordering cult members, including Ramkissoon, to withhold food and water from Ramkissoon's 2-year old son, Javon...

School Agency's Creationism Neutrality Does Not Violate Establishment Clause

Posted on April 01, 2009
In Comer v. Scott, (WD TX, March 31, 2009), a Texas federal district court rejected an Establishment Clause challenge to a policy of the Texas Education Agency that required its Director of Science to remain publicly neutral regarding the teaching of creationism...

Illinois Break Away Episcopal Diocese Files Declaratory Judgment Action

Posted on April 01, 2009
The Diocese of Quincy (IL) which last year broke from the Episcopal Church and affiliated with the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone has filed a declaratory judgment action in Illinois state court to clarify its rights to hold and manage diocese endowment funds...

India Supreme Court Rejects Muslim Student's Challenge To Grooming Rule

Posted on April 01, 2009
India's Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge by a Muslim high school student to school rules that require him to shave his beard. The National and UCANews yesterday reported on the decision that permits a Catholic school, the Nirmala Convent Higher Secondary School, to enforce its grooming policy...

President Signs Law Extending Foreign Religious Worker Program To Sept. 29

Posted on March 31, 2009
On March 20, President Obama signed H.R. 1127, a bill that makes "SR visas" under the special immigrant non-minister religious worker program available to aliens seeking to enter the U.S. before September 30, 2009. Under prior law the program had expired March 6...

Paper Says Catholic Church Knew of Priest Abuse Problem Earlier Than Previously Thought

Posted on March 31, 2009
National Catholic Reporter yesterday ran a long article disclosing that:decades before the clergy sexual-abuse crisis broke publicly across the U.S. Catholic landscape, the founder of a religious order that dealt regularly with priest sex abusers was so convinced of their inability to change that he searched for an island to purchase with the intent of using it as a place to isolate such offenders...

Ontario Expands Permissible Religious References On Personalized Plates

Posted on March 31, 2009
In Canada, Ontario's Ministry of Transportation announced last week that it was revising its personalized license plate program to permit religious titles to be used on personalized plates. The department says it has been guided by a report of a voluntary advisory panel (full text of report)...

Suit On Court Employees' Bible Study Group Settled

Posted on March 31, 2009
Christian Examiner reported yesterday on a settlement in Barlow v. Superior Court of California, a case in which several court employees in San Diego sued to challenge the denial of their request to use an open jury room or court room for their weekly lunch-time Bible study meeting...

Morocco Takes Action Against Shiites, Christians

Posted on March 31, 2009
AFP reported last week that the Moroccan government has begun a campaign to counter activities that are seen as contrary to the "moral and religious values" of Moroccan society. Dozens of people suspected of Shiite sympathies have been arrested. Moroccans largely follow the Malakite school of Sunni Islam...

Famous Indian Parliamentary Candidate Arrested For Anti-Muslim Speeches

Posted on March 30, 2009
In India, the battle over the candidacy of Varun Sanjay Gandhi, grandson of former Prime Minister Indira Ghandi, continues. Varun Ghandi, a member of the BJP, is a candidate for the lower house of India's Parliament, running from a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh...

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