Religion & Law

Utah AG Discloses Contents of Some Seized FLDS Documents

Posted on February 08, 2009
Yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune reorts on a talk given recently by Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff revealing new information about some of the documents seized during the state's raid of the FLDS' "Yearning for Zion Ranch" last April. (See prior posting)...

British Town Restores Funding To Christian Home In Settlement

Posted on February 08, 2009
The London Telegraph reported yesterday that a British town has agreed to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit that was filed against it by Pilgrim Homes. As reported earlier, Brighton & Hove City Council revoked of a £13,000 grant to the local Pilgrim Home after it refused to comply with Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations...

Planned Valentine's Day Morals Policing Stirs Controversy In India

Posted on February 08, 2009
In India, controversy has erupted over renewed morals policing by members of the right wing Hindu nationalist group Sri Ram Sena. (Background). Last month in Mangalore, some 40 members of the group attacked women at a pub, slapping them and pulling their hair, claiming they were engaged in obscene dancing and were violating traditional Indian values...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on February 08, 2009
In Pinkston-El-Bey v. Illinois, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6724 (SD IL, Jan. 30, 2009), an Illinois federal district court dismissed at the screening stage claims by an inmate who is a member of the Washitaw Nation of Muurs. Plaintiff sued the governor of Illinois and the warden of virtually every penal institution in Illinois, alleging that state prisons have not adequately accommodated religious beliefs of Washitaw Ismaili Moslems...

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New York City Considering Converting Some Catholic Schools To Charter Schools

Posted on February 07, 2009
New York City public schools are overcrowded. In Brooklyn, some Catholic schools threaten to close for lack of enrollment. WABC today reports that New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Bishop Nicholas Dimarzio of the Brooklyn diocese are considering a plan to select four Catholic schools in Brooklyn and Queens and convert them to publicly funded charter schools...

Student Christian Groups Lose Challenge To University Non-Discrimination Rules

Posted on February 07, 2009
In Every Nation Campus Ministries v. Achtenberg, (SD CA, Feb. 6, 2008), a California federal district court upheld the application of the California State University?s non-discrimination policy to four Christian groups at two universities. At San Diego State University and California State University Long Beach, officials refused official recognition to the four student groups because they refused to admit non-Christians as members...

Breakaway Church Keeps Property In Largely Evidentiary Ruling

Posted on February 07, 2009
In Hudson Presbyterian Church v. Eastminster Presbytery, (OH App., Feb. 4, 2009), an Ohio appellate court upheld a state trial court?s decision that a break-away Presbyterian congregation retained title to its property. The Presbyterian Church USA claimed that under the PCUSA constitution (Book of Order, Sec...

Federal Statute On Tolling Of Limitations For Military Raised In Clergy Abuse Case

Posted on February 07, 2009
In 2002, the California legislature created a one-year window in which clergy sexual abuse claims could be asserted, even though the statute of limitations had previously run on them. (See prior posting.) LA City Beat this week reports on a case in which a plaintiff, who was abused as a 16-year old Catholic high schooler, has brought suit asserting that he may still file because the federal Servicepersons? Civil Relief Act tolls the expiration of the one-year window...

Amendment To Stimulus Bill Defeated; Ban on Constrution Aid for Religious Use Remains

Posted on February 06, 2009
As previously reported, both the House and Senate versions of the economic stimulus bill contain a provision authorizing grants to state higher education agencies for "Higher Education Facilities." However the bill imposes limitations on sub-grants to colleges and universities for renovation and modernization of buildings...

UN Reviews Saudi Arabia Human Rights Record Today

Posted on February 06, 2009
The United Nations Human Rights Council implements a Universal Periodic Review process that reviews the human rights record of each of the UN's 192 members once every four years. Today in Geneva, the Council will focus on the human rights record of Saudi Arabia...

Georgia Good News Club Lawsuit Settled

Posted on February 06, 2009
Liberty Counsel announced yesterday that a Georgia federal district court has approved a settlement in a lawsuit filed last month against the Cobb County School District. The suit, filed on behalf of Child Evangelism Fellowship's Good News Clubs, alleged that the school district charged higher fees for CEF to use school facilities after school than is charged to secular groups...

Britain's National Health Service Issues Guide On Religion In Health Care

Posted on February 06, 2009
A Press Association report yesterday focuses on guidelines issued last month by Britain's National Health Service titled Religion or Belief: A Practical Guide for the NHS. While the new publication focuses on many aspects of religion in the workplace and in providing health care services, a nurse who was temporarily suspended for offering to pray for a patient focuses concern on a section of the guidelines that bars proselytizing...

High School Sued Over Refusal To Recognize Student Bible Club

Posted on February 06, 2009
Yesterday a high school student in Lindenhurst, New York, filed a federal lawsuit against his high school challenging its refusal to give official recognition to a student Bible Club. The school claimed that recognition would violate the Establishment Clause...

Property Adjudication In Lubavitch Feud is Upheld, But Injunction Reversed

Posted on February 06, 2009
Earlier this week, a New York appellate court handed down another decision in the long running legal battle between two factions of the Chabad Lubavitch movement. (See prior related posting.) In Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, Inc. v Sharf, (NY App. Div., Feb...

Oath Requirement In Oregon Tax Form Violates Free Exercise Rights

Posted on February 05, 2009
In Aslin v. Coos County Assessor, (OR Tax Ct., Jan. 13, 2009), a county tax assessor in Oregon refused to accept an unsigned personal property tax return from James Aslin. Aslin objected on religious grounds to the oath, included in the tax form, that required him to state "under penalties of false swearing" that the return is accurate...

Muslim Charity May Get Access to Seized Documents

Posted on February 05, 2009
The Toledo Blade yesterday reported on an order issued Jan. 30 by an Ohio federal district judge ordering the government to produce copies of all the material seized in the 2006 searches of the headquarters of a Muslim charity and of its president's home...

Pope Says Holocaust Denying Bishop Must Recant

Posted on February 05, 2009
The Washington Post yesterday reported that Pope Benedict XVI's lifting of the excommunication of Lefebvrite bishop Richard Williamson (see prior posting) has generated a storm of protest from Benedict's home country, Germany. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the Pope's action welcoming Williamson back into the Church gives "the impression that Holocaust denial might be tolerated...

OSCE Find Problems With Kazakhstan's Religion Law

Posted on February 05, 2009
On January 31, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights released a lengthy opinion (full text) on the proposed amendments to Kazakhstan's Religion Law. The amendments, passed by Kazakhstan's parliament last month, have been sent by the country's president to the country's Constitutional Council for review...

Obama Gives Wide-Ranging Talk At National Prayer Breakfast

Posted on February 05, 2009
This morning, President Barack Obama attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton hotel. (Washington Post.) The vice president, and various members of the Cabinet and of Congress also attended, as did representatives from around the world...

Obama Sets Up Revamped Faith-Based Office; Delays Decisions On Religion-Based Hiring By Grantees

Posted on February 05, 2009
President Barack Obama today issued an Executive Order (full text) setting up the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships as the successor to the Bush administration's Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives. Several paragraphs were added to the section of the Bush Executive Order expanding the functions of the Office...

Court Affirms IRS Has Misdelegated Church Summons Authority

Posted on February 04, 2009
In United States v. Living Word Christian Center, (D MN, Jan. 30, 2009), a Minnesota federal district judge adopted earlier recommendations made by a federal magistrate judge refusing to enforce an IRS summons for various church records. (See prior posting...

Missouri Baptist Convention Loses Attempt To Regain Conference Center

Posted on February 04, 2009
In Executive Board of the Missouri Baptist Convention v. Windermere Baptist Conference Center, (MO App., Feb. 3, 2009), a Missouri appellate court rejected attempts by the Missouri Baptist Convention to regain control of the valuable Windermere Baptist Conference Center that broke away from the Convention (along with 4 other institutions) in a dispute over the fundamentalist stance of new MBC leaders...

Canadian Court's Order Against Falun Gong Focuses On Expressive Conduct

Posted on February 04, 2009
In Vancouver (City) v. Zhang, (B.C. Sup. Ct., Jan. 29, 2009), the Supreme Court of the Canadian province of British Columbia granted the city of Vancouver an injunction requiring Falun Gong protesters to remove a hut and billboard that they had constructed on a residential street in front of the Chinese Consulate...

Court Issues Preliminary Injunction In Indiana Released Time Program

Posted on February 04, 2009
In H.S. v. Huntington County Community School Corporation, (ND IN, Feb. 3, 2009), an Indiana federal magistrate judge recommended that a preliminary injunction be granted in a challenge to a released time program at a Huntington, Indiana elementary school...

5th Circuit Hears Arguments In Texas Moment of Silence Case

Posted on February 04, 2009
Yesterday, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Croft v. Governor of Texas (recording of full arguments). The appeal grows out of a decision last year by a Texas federal district court rejecting an Establishment Clause challenge to the Texas law that requires public schools to observe a moment of silence each day during which students may "reflect, pray, meditate, or engage in any other silent activity...

Rabbinic Judges In Israel Sue To Challenge New Judicial Appointments

Posted on February 04, 2009
The Jerusalem Post reported last week on a lawsuit filed in Israel's High Court by a group of long-time Conversion Court judges. The lawsuit challenges the January 1 Cabinet approval of ten new rabbinic judges for the Conversion Court. Petitioners claim that one of the members of the special committee that selected the new judges, Civil Service Commissioner Shmuel Hollander, was misled into thinking that there was a shortage of judges on the court...

Title VII Suit Against DC Transit Authority Settled

Posted on February 04, 2009
The Justice Department announced yesterday that it has entered a settlement agreement with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in a Title VII religious discrimination case. The lawsuit was filed after WMATA refused a religious accommodation to permit Gloria Jones, who had preliminarily been hired as a bus driver, to wear a long skirt instead of pants...

Court Details How To Measure Distance From Church For Liquor License

Posted on February 04, 2009
A Rhode Island statute (Sec. 3-7-19) prohibits granting a liquor license to any establishment located within 200 feet of any place of public worship. Block Island (RI) Times reported Monday that a state Superior Court judge has interpreted the statute to require examination of exactly where on a restaurant's property liquor will be served...

Senate Version of SCHIP Authorizes Grants To Faith-Based Groups

Posted on February 03, 2009
The White House has posted on its website for comment the Senate-approved version of the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009 (SCHIP). It says that this version of the bill is expected to pass the House in the coming week. Section 201 of the bill provides for "grants to eligible entities ...

Darwin Day Poster Placed In Key Cities

Posted on February 03, 2009
Darwin Day is Feb. 12. This year it marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th anniversary of the release of his seminal book on evolution, Origin of Species. Freedom from Religion Foundation announced yesterday that to mark the occasion, it has placed billboards praising Darwin in Dayton, Tennessee and Dover, Pennsylvania...

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