Religion & Law

Lawsuit Says Village's Creation and Zoning Discriminate Against Hasidic Jews

Posted on January 19, 2009
Last week, a group of Hasidic Jews who own land now located in the New York village of South Blooming Grove filed an interesting religious discrimination suit alleging violations of the federal Fair Housing Act and the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause...

White House Releases Publications on Its Accomplishments

Posted on January 19, 2009
On Saturday the White House released three publications setting out the accomplishments of George W. Bush's presidency: A Charge Kept: The Record of the Bush Presidency 2001-2009; Highlights of Accomplishments and Results of the Administration of George W...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on January 19, 2009
From SSRN:Ian C. Bartrum, Of Historiography and Constitutional Principle: Jefferson's Reply to the Danbury Baptists, (Journal of Church and State, Vol. 51, Spring 2008). From SmartCILP and elsewhere:Danielle Boaz, Religious Reparations from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: Forming Demons, Cults, and Zombies to Justify Black Enslavement, 20 St...

Australian Churches Back Removal of Child Abuse Limitation Statutes

Posted on January 19, 2009
In Australia, the Catholic and Uniting churches are both publicly giving at least qualified support to a proposal by Anglican Archbishop Phillip Aspinall for nation-wide removal of statutes of limitation on suits by child sex abuse victims against various institutions...

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Op-Ed Predicts Obama's Choice For D.C. Church

Posted on January 19, 2009
Among the decisions awaiting incoming President Barack Obama is choosing a D.C. church for himself and his family. Mark Tooley in the Wall Street Journal on Friday weighed in with some informed speculation. He says: "Presidential churches usually lie within one short mile of the White House, and have short, one-hour services...

DC Anti-Abortion Chalk Art Protesters Get Preliminary Injunction

Posted on January 18, 2009
On Friday, a group of Christian activists filed suit in federal district court in Washington, DC seeking to prevent DC police from interfering with their planned chalk-art demonstration near the White House on January 24 to protest Barack Obama's support of abortion rights...

Italian Buses Reject Atheist Advertising Campaign

Posted on January 18, 2009
In Genoa, Italy, an advertising agency has refused to sign a contract with an atheist group to display its advertising signs on city buses. Reuters today reports that the agency told the Italian Union of Atheists and Rationalist Agnostics that the ad violated its ethics in advertising code...

Non-FLDS Residents Seek Input In Court Reform of UEP Trust

Posted on January 18, 2009
Last week, both the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News reported on another complication in the ongoing efforts by a Utah court to rewrite the terms of the United Effort Plan Trust originally set up by the FLDS church to hold almost all the property in the twin cities of Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on January 18, 2009
In Yates v. Painter, (3d Cir., Jan. 13, 2009), the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals remanded a prisoner's RLUIPA and first amendment challenges in light of an intervening decision by the 3rd Cirucit defining "substantial burden" under RLUIPA. Basil Allah Yates claimed that prison officials confiscated Nation of Islam materials taht he is required to study as part of his religion...

Two European Countries Move Toward Choice In School Religion Classes

Posted on January 18, 2009
Two European countries are moving toward more choice in public schools on religious education. In Wales, schools must provide daily collective worship for all children, unless their parents withdraw them. Wales Online on Thursday reported that Assembly education minister Jane Hutt has ruled that students over 16 years of age can decide on their own to opt out of the assemblies...

Opponents of Bolivia's New Constitution Focus On Religious Changes

Posted on January 18, 2009
On January 25, Bolivians vote on a proposed new constitution for the country. (BBC News.) The new constitution, according to a report last week by IPS, contains a bill of rights, and also eliminates the provision in the current Constitution that recognizes Catholicism as the country's official religion...

Article Traces Change In Pattern of Inaugural Prayers

Posted on January 17, 2009
Beliefnet reprints a lengthy article from today's Wall Street Journal by Steven Waldman titled Why The Inaugural Prayers Have Become Less Inclusive Over Time. Waldman says: The country has gone through, in effect, three phases. In the first, presidents used a religious-diversity model...

Bureau of Prisons Proposes Rule on Chapel Libraries

Posted on January 17, 2009
Yesterday, the Federal Bureau of Prisons published a proposed rule change in the Federal Register (full text) that permits prison chapel libraries to exclude books, audiotapes and videos that "could incite, promote or otherwise suggest the commission of violence or other criminal activity...

Muslim Ads On Broward County Buses Raise Protest

Posted on January 17, 2009
In Broward County, Florida, an advertising agency handles the sale of ad space on county buses. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has bought space on the outside of 50 buses for the message: "ISLAM: The Way of Life of Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad" along with a toll-free number for further information...

Suits Filed To Challenge HHS Conscience Rules

Posted on January 16, 2009
Today's Washington Post reports that three separate lawsuits were filed yesterday in federal district court in Connecticut challenging the "conscience rules" recently promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services. (See prior posting.) The rules, which protect health care providers who have moral or religious objections to performing or furnishing particular services, are scheduled to take effect January 20, the day Barack Obama comes into office...

President Proclaims January 18 As Sanctity of Human Life Day

Posted on January 16, 2009
Yesterday President Bush issued a Proclamation (full text) declaring January 18 as National Sanctity of Human Life Day 2009. The Proclamation says in part:All human life is a gift from our Creator that is sacred, unique, and worthy of protection. On National Sanctity of Human Life Day, our country recognizes that each person, including every person waiting to be born, has a special place and purpose in this world...

NY Approves Hebrew Charter School As Group Forms To Promote Them Elsewhere

Posted on January 16, 2009
On Tuesday, the full New York Board of Regents approved an application for creation of the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School. The publicly-funded charter school, to open in Brooklyn, will teach Hebrew language and Jewish culture. (See prior posting...

Prof Urges Bet Din Should Examine Part of the Madoff Fraud

Posted on January 16, 2009
An op-ed published yesterday in the Forward urges that one of the principals in the Madoff financial fraud be brought before a Jewish religious court (bet din). Villanova law professor Chaim Saiman suggests that actions by Ezra Merkin, the feeder fund manager who was responsible for large amounts of money from Jewish non-profits being directed to Madoff, should be examined under Halacha (Jewish law)...

Korean Panel Says Military Objectors Deaths Were From State Brutality

Posted on January 16, 2009
The Hankyoreh reports today that in South Korea, a Presidential Commission on Suspicious Deaths in the Military has concluded that the deaths of five Jehovah's Witness conscientious objectors in the 1970's and 1980's resulted from "beatings and acts of brutality committed against them by military officials...

Non-Profit Victim of Madoff Fraud May Need To Repay Fictitious Earnings

Posted on January 16, 2009
Disclosures this week from the non-profit women's Zionist organization, Hadassah, raise interesting questions about the application of New York's Fraudulent Conveyance Act and the federal Bankruptcy Code's fraudulent conveyance provisions to charities that were victims of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme...

Ministerial Exception Leads To Dismissal of Charity's Claim Against Bishop

Posted on January 15, 2009
In Community Economic Development, Inc. v. Cote, 2008 Conn. Super. LEXIS 3112 (CT Super., Dec. 1, 2008), a Connecticut state trial court applied the "ministerial exception" to dismiss a claim against the Catholic bishop of Norwalk (CT) by a charity devoted to raising for the poor in Tanzania...

Proponents Press NYC Council on Nativity Scenes In Schools

Posted on January 15, 2009
While it is a long time until next Christmas, in New York City a battle over the display of nativity scenes in public schools is back on the political front burner. Yesterday both the New York Times and Gothamist report that City Councilman Tony Avella plans to ask the full City Council to vote within the next few weeks on the issue...

New Jersey Governor Signs Bill Permitting Adjustment of Election Dates

Posted on January 15, 2009
On Monday, New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed into law ACS 3186, a bill that permits the dates of municipal elections and school board elections to be adjusted to avoid conflicts with religious holidays. The bill applies to an an election if it "coincides with a period of religious observance that limits significantly the usual activities of the followers of a particular religion or that would result in significant religious consequences for such followers...

Arkansas Authorities Still Seeking Children From Tony Alamo Ministries

Posted on January 15, 2009
As previously reported, after federal authorities raided the Arkansas compound of Tony Alamo Ministries, Arkansas human services officials began to take a number of children of Alamo's followers into custody. AP reported yesterday that court orders have been issued to take up to 100 children into protective custody, but that Alamo followers have routinely moved the children to churches in other states to evade Arkansas authorities...

Afghan Newspaper Editor Charged With Blasphemy

Posted on January 15, 2009
AFP reported yesterday that in Afghanistan, the editor of a small Kabul newspaper, Payman Daily, was arrested Tuesday on blasphemy charges. A a council of Islamic clerics and a government media disciplinary commission found that an article the newspaper published was "an insult to Islam...

Suit Challenges NC Parks Permit Rule

Posted on January 15, 2009
On Monday, Liberty Counsel announced that it is filing a federal lawsuit against the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation challenging the constitutionality of its rule that requires a permit for any meeting, exhibition, ceremony, or speech in a state park...

Injunction Denied In Newdow's Challenge To Inaugural Oath and Prayers

Posted on January 15, 2009
The Washington Post reports that this afternoon federal district judge Reggie B. Walton denied a temporary injunction in Newdow v. Roberts. The decision allows Barack Obama's swearing-in to include use of "so help me God" in the oath administered by Chief Justice John Roberts...

Court Rejects RFRA Defense To Endangered Species Indictment

Posted on January 14, 2009
An opinion has just become available on LEXIS in an interesting RFRA case decided some nine months ago. In United States v. Adeyemo, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106330 (ND CA, April 8, 2008), a Nigerian adherent of a Santeria-Catholic tradition, who visits the United States regularly to sell handicraft items, was indicted for violating the Endangered Species Act...

President Declares January 16 As Religious Freedom Day

Posted on January 14, 2009
Yesterday President Bush issued a Proclamation (full text) declaring January 16 as Religious Freedom Day. The day marks the anniversary of the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on that date in 1786. The Proclamation says in part:The United States also stands with religious dissidents and believers from around the globe who practice their faith peacefully...

New Louisiana Guidelines Implement Science Education Act

Posted on January 14, 2009
A committee of Louisiana's Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) yesterday voted 10-0 to adopt new science guidelines, according to KATC News. The guidelines implement the Louisiana Science Education Act passed last June. The statute allows teachers to use supplemental materials, so long as they do not promote or discriminate against religion...

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