Religion & Law

Non-Theist Groups Urge Obama To Reject Honorary Presidency of Boy Scouts

Posted on January 14, 2009
Nineteen atheist and humanist groups yesterday sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama urging him to oppose discrimination against atheists, agnostics, humanists, and other nontheists by declining the title of Honorary President of the Boy Scouts of America...

Dentist Settles EEOC Suit Charging Him With Imposing Scientology On Employees

Posted on January 14, 2009
Today's Chicago Tribune reports that Chicago dentist James L. Orrington has settled a religious discrimination lawsuit brought against him by the EEOC. The agency charged that he required his employees "to engage in Scientology religious practices and learn about Scientology as conditions of their employment...

Kyrgyzstan President Signs Controversial New Religion Law

Posted on January 14, 2009
Kyrgyzstan President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Monday signed a repressive new Religion Law according to reports by the Press Association and by Forum 18. The law streamlines government control over religion by banning private religious schools and providing for teaching of religion in public schools...

Suit Say HHS Allowed Catholic Agency To Illegally Restrict Use of Human Trafficking Grants

Posted on January 13, 2009
The ACLU of Massachusetts announced yesterday that it has filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services alleging that HHS has permitted the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to restrict the use of grant monies given to it under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act...

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Westboro Baptist Church Files Challenge To Missouri City's Funeral Picketing Law

Posted on January 13, 2009
Last week, Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, filed a lawsuit in a Missouri federal district court challenging the constitutionality of a St. Joseph, Missouri ordinance that bans picketing "in front of or about" a church, cemetery or funeral home within one hour on either side of a funeral ceremony...

NY Regents Committee Approves Hebrew Language Charter School

Posted on January 13, 2009
The New York Times reports that a committee of the New York State Board of Regents voted 8-1 yesterday to approve creation of a state-funded Hebrew Language Academy Charter School in Brooklyn. The school will open with a kindergarten and 1st grade class and will eventually expand through the eighth grade in a school district that includes many Jewish immigrants from Russia and Israel...

School District Barred From Promoting Prayer and Religious Activities

Posted on January 13, 2009
In Doe v. School Board for Santa Rosa County, Florida, (ND FL, Jan 9, 2008), a Florida federal district court issued a temporary injunction banning Santa Rosa County schools from promoting prayers during school-sponsored events; sponsoring religious baccalaureate services at schools; holding school-sponsored events at religious venues when other sites are reasonably available;permitting school officials to promote their personal religious beliefs or proselytize students in class or during school-sponsored activities; and otherwise unconstitutionally endorsing or coercing religion...

Chechnya Mandates Islamic Head Scarves In Public Buildings

Posted on January 13, 2009
In the Russian autonomous republic of Chechnya, requiring women at Chechnya's State University in Grozny to wear Islamic headscarves is part of a program by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to promote an Islamic revival. Britain's Financial Times reported yesterday that the head scarf requirement applies in all public buildings...

In Israel, Religion-State Issues In Focus On IDF Soldiers

Posted on January 13, 2009
In Israel, concern about soldiers, particularly those going into combat in Gaza, have resulted in some unusual religion and state questions. The Jerusalem Post reported last week that a unit of the Israeli Defense Force's Rabbinate has prepared 10,000 MP3 files with recorded sermons of encouragement from the country's leading rabbis for distribution to combat soldiers, regardless of the soldiers' religious beliefs...

Vatican Diplomat Cardinal Pio Laghi Dies

Posted on January 12, 2009
AP reports that Cardinal Pio Laghi, a long-time member of the Vatican's diplomatic corps, died yesterday at the age of 82. After serving in several other countries, he was named the Vatican's envoy to Washington in 1980, before the countries had formal diplomatic relations...

Church Assets Awarded In Divorce To Leader's Ex-Wife

Posted on January 12, 2009
In Florida, a Miami-Dade County state district court judge has decided that Growing in Grace ministry is so much the alter ego of its leader, Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, that his ex-wife is entitled to half the assets of the 300-church organization, as well as those held in her husband's name...

British Christian Retirement Home Loses City Grant Over Lack Of Openness To Gays

Posted on January 12, 2009
In another clash between Britain's Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations and Christian groups, Pilgrim Home in Brighton plans to bring a religious discrimination challenge to the revocation of a £13,000 grant from Brighton & Hove City Council...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on January 12, 2009
From SSRN:James B. Johnston, The Bridge Connecting Pontius Pilate's Sentencing of Jesus to the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission's Concerns Over Executing the Innocent: When Human Beings with Inherently Human Flaws Determine Guilt or Innocence and Life or Death, (Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Forthcoming)...

British Judge Wants Courts To Aid Muslim Women In Obtaining Religious Divorce

Posted on January 12, 2009
Britain's National Secular Society reported last week that England?s first female Appeal Court judge and former head of the Family Division, Baroness Butler-Sloss, has urged a change to help Muslim women obtain religious divorces from their husbands. In a debate at London's Temple Church, she said that judges should not grant a civil divorce to a Muslim couple unless the couple has already divorced religiously...

Gene Robinson, Gay Episcopal Bishop, Will Deliver Prayer At Pre-Inaugual Event

Posted on January 12, 2009
Today's Concord (NH) Monitor reports that Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson has been invited to deliver a prayer at an inaugural kick-off event at the Lincoln Memorial on the Sunday preceding the formal inauguration ceremony for President-Elect Barack Obama...

Supreme Court Denies Review In City Council Prayer Case

Posted on January 12, 2009
Today the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Turner v. City Council of Fredericksburg, (Docket No. 08-518) (Order List). In the case, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (in a decision written by Sandra Day O'Connor sitting as a Circuit judge) upheld the policy of the Fredericksburg, Virginia city council that requires prayers which open its sessions to be nondenominational...

Burma Orders Christians and Muslims To End Worship Services In Private Apartments

Posted on January 11, 2009
In the heavily Buddhist country of Burma, both Christians and Muslims were ordered last week to stop holding religious services in residential apartments. Mizzima reported on Wednesday that in Rangoon, the Kyauktada Township Peace and Development Council held a meeting with nearly 50 church leaders last Monday to deliver their demand...

Religious Groups Plan Elaborate Post-Inauguration Demonstrations

Posted on January 11, 2009
Religious groups of various sorts are planning demonstrations in the days following the presidential inauguration. Diverse Issues In Higher Education on Friday reported that Christian, Jewish and Muslim clerics will join with immigrant right groups on the day after the inauguration to demonstrate for immigration reform...

Episcopalian Schism Continues To Generate Litigation

Posted on January 11, 2009
Litigation involving break-away Episcopal congregations continues. In Milwaukee (WI), Episcopal Bishop Steven A. Miller says the Diocese will sue to retain the property of St. Edmund's Episcopal Church. Last month, the parish voted overwhelming to leave The Episcopal Church and affiliate with the more conservative Convocation of North American Anglicans...

Disciples of Christ Minister Will Deliver Sermon At National Prayer Service

Posted on January 11, 2009
A national prayer service is scheduled to be held at the National Cathedral on Jan. 21, the day after the presidential inauguration. Today's New York Times reports that president-elect Barack Obama has selected Sharon E. Watkins, president and general minister of the comparatively small, liberal-leaning, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) denomination to deliver the sermon at the service...

French Cities Reportedly Finance Mosques Indirectly

Posted on January 11, 2009
Islamist Watch blog yesterday reported that mayors in French cities are indirectly subsidizing mosques by granting long term emphyteutic leases at low, or even nominal, rents to provide land on which the mosques will be constructed. Two of the leases have been the subject of litigation, with mixed results...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on January 11, 2009
In Gladson v. Iowa Department of Corrections, (8th Cir., Jan. 8, 2009), the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals held that no substantial burden was placed on religious practices of Wicca prisoners when they were given only three hours to celebrate the Wiccan Samhain holiday...

India's Supreme Court Criticizes Orissa For Failing To Protect Christians

Posted on January 10, 2009
Religion News Service reports on a warning against religious violence issued by a 3-judge panel of India's Supreme Court last Monday. After a hearing on a petition by a Catholic archbishop who is asking for protection of his followers from retaliatory violence they have been experiencing, the Court said that it will not "tolerate persecution of religious minorities...

Neighbors Challenge Plans For 77-Foot Cross At Prayer Garden

Posted on January 10, 2009
Today's San Antonio (TX) Express reports on a pending Texas state court case in which neighbors are attempting to prevent The Coming King Foundation from placing a 77-foot tall cross in their Kerrville, Texas subdivision. The cross is part of a planned prayer garden, most of which will be located on 20 acres adjoining the Mesa Vista subdivision...

British Employment Tribunal Upholds Wrongful Dismissal Claim of Counsellor

Posted on January 10, 2009
In Britain, Bristol's Employment Tribunal handed down a decision on Wednesday that upheld a "wrongful dismissal" claim brought by a former church elder against the non-profit counselling service, Relate. However the Tribunal rejected his religious discrimination and "unfair dismissal" claims...

Kazakh President Sends Religion Law for Constitutional Review

Posted on January 10, 2009
Forum 18 reported Friday that in Kazakhstan, instead of signing a new Religion Law, President Nursultan Nazarbaev has sent it to the country's Constitutional Council for review. The Council has a month to rule on whether the law complies with the Constitution, which prohibits religious discrimination (Art...

Court Says Records of Religious Leaders' Visits To White House Must Be Released

Posted on January 10, 2009
The federal government has lost another installment (see prior postings 1, 2) in the attempt by a public interest group to obtain records confirming visits to the White House, and to Vice President Dick Cheney's residence, by nine prominent conservative Christian leaders...

Defendants File Answers In Newdow Challenge To Inauguration Ceremony

Posted on January 10, 2009
Defendants yesterday filed responses in Newdow v. Roberts, (D DC), the pending federal district court challenge to two aspects of the upcoming Presidential Inauguration ceremony-- the planned prayers and the use of "so help me God" in the oath. (See prior posting...

Tajikistan Supreme Court Bans Salafi Islam Movement

Posted on January 10, 2009
Radio Free Europe reported yesterday that the Supreme Court of Tajikistan has banned Salafi, a branch of the Sunni Islamic movement, from operating in the country. A Supreme Court spokesman said: "In order to prevent national, racial, and religious conflicts and damage to the nation's reputation and honor, Tajikistan's Supreme Court, as of January 8, 2009, bans the Salafi religious movement's activities in the country as an illegal group...

American Jewish Congress Hit Hard By Madoff Fraud

Posted on January 09, 2009
One of the nation's most important voices on church-state issues, the American Jewish Congress, has been hard hit by the Bernard Madoff fraud according to a report yesterday by the Forward. Some $21 million of the organization's $24 million endowment was invested with Madoff...

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