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Religion & Law

Religion Clause

Current legal, political and scholarly developments relating to free exercise of religion and separation of church and state.
By Howard M. Friedman

Post Frequency: 19.9/day

Last Entry: November 05, 2020 at 07:00:00

Pope Meets Nancy Pelosi; Criticizes Her Pro-Choice Views

Posted on February 19, 2009
Yesterday Pope Benedict XVI met privately for 15 minutes with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Peolsi who is on an official visit to Italy . In what may have been an uncomfortable meeting with Pelosi who is Catholic, but who favors keeping abortion legal, the Pope, according to CNS, "told her that all Catholics, especially those who are lawmakers, must work to protect human life at every stage...

Italian Teacher Suspended For Removing Crucifix

Posted on February 19, 2009
In Italy where controversy continues about Christian crosses in public buildings, a school teacher has been suspended for a month by the National Education Council after his students complained that he took down the crucifix that had been hanging in his classroom in Umbria...

Jesuit Order Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy In Oregon

Posted on February 18, 2009
The Society of Jesus, Oregon Province , has become the first major religious order to file for federal bankruptcy reorganization, according to a report in today's Fairbanks (AK) Daily News-Miner. The filing was primarily in response to some 200 additional claims of sexual abuse of children-- mainly from Alaska-- against the Order...

Baha'i Leaders In Iran Are Charged With Espionage

Posted on February 18, 2009
The Washington Post reported yesterday that seven Baha'i leaders in Iran who have been detained for eight months have now been charged with espionage. A formal indictment will be issued next week. Iran's prosecutor general, Ayatollah Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi, has focused on ties between Bahia's and Israel...

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Paper Says Obama's Faith-Based Office Wil Not Show LGBT Bias

Posted on February 18, 2009
Today's Windy City Times focuses on Obama campaign's promise last July that the new Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (see prior posting) will not fund groups that advocate for anti-gay reparative therapy. It reports that one member of the new FBNP Advisory Council is Fred Davie who is openly gay...

Christian Ministry Challenges Oklahoma Prison Rules

Posted on February 18, 2009
Last week, Wingspread Prison Ministries filed a federal lawsuit against the Oklahoma Department of Corrections challenging restrictions that interfere with Wingspread's outreach to inmates in Oklahoma. The complaint (full text) in Evangelists for Christ, Inc...

Italy's High Court Acquits Judge Who Refuses To Sit In Courtroom With Cross

Posted on February 18, 2009
ANSA reported yesterday that Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation has reversed the conviction of Judge Luigi Tosti who had been sentenced by a lower court to seven months in jail for refusing to carry out his official duties. (See prior posting.) The sentence came after the Supreme Council of Magistrates removed Tosti from his position and cut off his pay for unjustifiable behavior...

Russian Court Orders Confiscation of 13 Dissident Orthodox Congregations

Posted on February 18, 2009
Eesti Elu reported yesterday that in the Russian city of Suzdal, a court has ordered government confiscation of 13 congregations belonging to the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC). ROAC is the successor to the underground Catacomb Church that was formed to resist the government-infiltrated Russian Orthodox Church during the period of Soviet Communist control...

Ghana's Vice President Wants Government Inspired By Christian Values

Posted on February 18, 2009
Ghana's Vice President John Dramani Mahama speaking to the synod of the Catholic Archdiocese of Accra on Monday said that his National Democratic Congress (NDC) Administration would rely heavily on religious values and religious institutions in bringing social reform to the country...

U.S. State Department Moves Gingerly On Durban II Conference Participation

Posted on February 17, 2009
The Obama administration has decided to tread carefully on the controversial issue of whether the United States should participate in the Second UN World Conference Against Racism (known as the "Durban Review Conference" or "Durban II") scheduled for Geneva in April...

Paper Questions NY Bishop's Political Contribution

Posted on February 17, 2009
Today's New York Daily News questions a $250 political donation made by Brooklyn's Catholic Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio. The bishop (whose diocese also includes Queens) made the contribution to City Council candidate Geraldine Chapey whose mother is a member of the state Board of Regents...

Professional Biologists' Group Boycotts Louisiana Over Science Education Law

Posted on February 17, 2009
AP reported yesterday that the professional group, The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, has written Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (full text of letter), informing him that it has not chosen New Orleans for its 2011 meeting largely because of Louisiana's enactment of a law last year that allows teachers to supplement standard science texts with supplemental materials...

Arkansas House Says Guns No Longer Totally Banned In Church

Posted on February 17, 2009
The Arkansas House of Representatives last week passed HB 1237 that would allow holders of concealed carry permits to carry firearms in churches, unless the church posts signs prohibiting them. The bill now goes to the state Senate. The New York Times reported last week that proponents of the bill say it is about the right of churches to make their own decisions -- without governmental intervention-- on whether or not to permit firearms...

80th Anniversary of Vatican City State Marked By Conference

Posted on February 17, 2009
February 11 was the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Lateran Accords that created Vatican City as a separate political state. A conference to commemorate the anniversary was held Feb. 12 to 14, with sessions in Rome and the Vatican. The conference was titled A Small Territory for a Great Mission...

College Renovation Funds-- And Religious Exclusion Question-- Back In Stimulus Bill

Posted on February 16, 2009
There has been a good deal of rhetoric and confusion over provisions in the stimulus bill permitting states to use certain funds for higher education renovation projects-- and the concomitant ban on funding for buildings used for religious purposes. (See prior posting...

Russian Legislator Wants Government Religious TV Channel

Posted on February 16, 2009
In Russia, the Vice Speaker of the Federation Council (the upper house of Russia's parliament) says he supports the idea of creating a Public Council on Morality to deal with objectionable television programming as well as the proposal to create a federal religious television channel...

Stimulus Bill Drafters Recognize Religious Objections To Electronic Health Records [Corrected]

Posted on February 16, 2009
A portion of the stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, that President Obama will sign tomorrow provides funding to computerize health records across the country. Title XIII, known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act ("HITECH Act") provides in Sec...

Mild Form of Islamic Law To Control Part of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province

Posted on February 16, 2009
Yesterday's London Guardian reports that in Pakistan, the government will announce today an arrangement under which a mild form of Islamic law will be imposed in the Malakand region of the North West Frontier Province. Taliban insurgents, who control much of the nearby Swat Valley, support a system of speedy Islamic justice and have imposed rigid Wahabi Islamic rule in portions under their control...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on February 16, 2009
From SSRN:Yossi Nehushtan, Secular and Religious Conscientious Exemptions: Between Tolerance and Equality, (LAW AND RELIGION IN THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT, Peter Cane, Carolyn Evans, Zoe Robinson, eds., p. 243, 2008).Lorenzo Zucca, The Crisis of the Secular State: A Reply to Professor Sajo, (I...

Saudi King Shakes Up Government To Get More Religious Moderates

Posted on February 15, 2009
Today's New York Times and CNN-IBN report that Saudi Arabia's Kiing Abdullah yesterday removed two officials in an effort to reduce the political power of hard-line Muslim clerics. Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ghaith, head of the Muttawah (religious police), has been replaced by Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Humain...

Afghanistan Appeals Court Upholds Prison For Quran Translators

Posted on February 15, 2009
AP reports that today an appeals court in Afghanistan upheld 20-year prison sentences for two men who published a translation of the Quran in Dari without the original Arabic verses alongside. (See prior posting.) Ahmad Ghaws Zalmai was the translator and Muslim cleric Mushtaq Ahmad signed a letter endorsing the translation...

Austria's Government Fires Muslim Religion Teacher for Anti-Semitism

Posted on February 15, 2009
Austrian Times reports that last Thursday the country's Education Minister Claudia Schmied ordered Vienna's city school council to dismiss a Muslim man who is currently teaching a course in religion at the city's Cooperative Secondary School. The teacher was charged with distribution anti-Semitic leaflets to his students, urging them to boycott a list of "Jewish firms...

Recent Prisoner Free Excercise Cases

Posted on February 15, 2009
In Weinberger v. Grimes, (6th Cir., Feb. 10, 2009), the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of a civil suit by a former federal prisoner who claimed that his free exercise rights and his rights under RFRA were violated by inadequate accommodation of his Jewish religious dietary needs and by various other actions that favored Christian prisoners and interfered with his religious worship...

San Diego Diocese Will Begin Release of Records On Abusive Priests

Posted on February 14, 2009
In September 2007, the Catholic Diocese of San Diego (CA) entered a settlement in claims of clergy sexual abuse by 144 victims. Part of the settlement included an agreement on release of documents regarding abusive priests and employees, and records of how the Church dealt with them...

Kentucky Appeals Court Will Review Case On Access To Church Records

Posted on February 14, 2009
Yesterday's Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal reported yesterday that a Kentucky state Court of Appeals earlier this week stayed an order issued by a Jefferson Circuit Court in a suit by church members against the pastor and three lay leaders of the First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown...

This Is "Evolution Weekend" In Houses of Worship

Posted on February 14, 2009
This weekend is Evolution Weekend in churches and synagogues around the country. Sponsored by the Clergy Letter Project, the purpose of the weekend is to demonstrate that "evolutionary theory ... is fully harmonious with religious faith." Over a thousand congregations from all 50 states and 15 foreign countries are slated to take part...

Geert Wilders Kept Out of Britain, But His Video Is Shown to House of Lords

Posted on February 14, 2009
Controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders was invited to England last week by a member of Britain's House of Lords, but British immigration officials at Heathrow Airport on Thursday sent him back to the Netherlands, saying that he is a threat to security...

City Barred From Enforcing Noise Ordinance In Consent Decree

Posted on February 14, 2009
A consent judgment (full text) has been entered by a New York federal district court enjoining the city of Ithaca from enforcing a provision in its municipal ordinances that bans noise which can be heard more than 25 feet away. DeFerio v. City of Ithaca, (ND NY, 2/12/2009) was a lawsuit brought by a Christian evangelist who had been prevented by police from preaching in the Ithaca Commons...

Some Oklahoma Legislators Object To Invocation By Gay Minister

Posted on February 14, 2009
A routine motion in Oklahoma's House of Representatives encountered unexpected opposition last Wednesday, according to NewsOK. Reverend Scott Jones had been invited by Rep. Al McAffrey to deliver that day's invocation as chaplain for the day in the House...

Christian College Student Sues Over Speech Prof's Treatment of His Presentation

Posted on February 13, 2009
On Wednesday, a student at Los Angeles City College filed a federal court lawsuit against a speech professor John Matteson, and against the trustees and various administrators at the College. The lawsuit revolves around a speech that plaintiff Jonathan Lopez delivered in class to fulfill an open-ended assignment for the course...

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