Religion & Law

Jury Finds For Boulder Colorado Church In RLUIPA Case

Posted on November 20, 2008
The Longmont (CO) Times Call reported yesterday that a federal court jury has rendered its decision in Rocky Mountain Christian Church v. Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County, Colorado. (See prior posting.) The case involves a challenge to the denial of a church's application for a special use permit so it can expand its facilities...

Israeli Officials Express Frustration Over Strict Conversion Rules

Posted on November 20, 2008
In Israel, the strict rules for conversion to Judaism imposed by the Chief Rabbinate continue to rankle government officials who want to find a way to help some 300,000 Russian immigrants who are not technically Jewish under religious law. Many of them wish to convert, but do not want to commit to a strict Orthodox Jewish religious lifestyle which is imposed as a condition of conversion by rabbis who control the government's conversion courts...

Texas Board of Education Hears Testimony On Proposed Science Standards

Posted on November 20, 2008
Yesterday, the Texas State Board of Education heard testimony on its proposed standards for teaching science. Links to the full text of the standards and panel reports on them are available from the Texas Education Agency's website. Today's Dallas Morning News reports on testimony of some of the nearly 90 people who had registered to speak at the hearings...

White House Won't Comment On Summum Case

Posted on November 20, 2008
The major church-state case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court this term is Pleasant Grove City, UT v. Summum. It was argued last week. (See prior posting.) Apparently the White House wants to steer clear of the controversy. Here is an exchange from yesterday's White House press briefing (full text) by Press Secretary Dana Perino...

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Magistrate Says Subpoena for Megachurch Records Was Improperly Issued

Posted on November 19, 2008
Today's Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that a federal magistrate judge in Minneapolis has recommended that the court refuse to enforce an IRS subpoena for financial documents issued to Living Word Christian Center. The church argued that the subpoena for financial records was not approved by "an appropriate high-level Treasury official" as required by Internal Revenue Code Section 7611...

AG Choice Eric Holder Has Little Record On Church-State or Religious Freedom Issues

Posted on November 19, 2008
Barack Obama's reported choice for Attorney General, Eric Holder, appears to have little record on church-state or religious freedom issues. The one aspect of his past record that arguably relates to these issues is his support for strong hate crimes enforcement and legislation...

Objector Arrested For Disrupting Council's Moment of Silence With Loud Prayer

Posted on November 19, 2008
In Southport, Indiana, 70-year old Charles Lynch objects to Mayor Rob Thoman's practice of beginning City Council meetings with a moment of silence instead of a prayer as was the practice before Thoman's election. At Monday night Council's meeting, Lynch began reading a prayer out loud during the moment of silence...

Suit Challenges Refusal To Issue Vanity Plates Refering To God

Posted on November 19, 2008
In Indiana, for an added fee the Bureau of Motor Vehicles issues personalized license plates bearing the driver's selected combination of letters and numbers. Indiana Code Ann. 9-18-15-4 permits the BMV to refuse an application of the requested lettering would be "offensive to good taste and decency...

Algerian Appeals Court Upholds Conviction For Smoking During Ramadan

Posted on November 19, 2008
In Algeria, an appeals court yesterday upheld the convictions of three men for smoking cigarettes on the street during the Ramadan daylight fasting period this past September. However their sentences for offending religion were reduced from 3 month to 2 months in jail, and they are likely to be released this week...

Maryland County Residents Urge Council To Reject RLUIPA Settlement

Posted on November 19, 2008
In Bristol, Maryland, zoning officials denied Riverdale Baptist Church a permit to construct an expanded campus for its Arundel Bay Christian Academy. The Church in turn filed a RLULIPA lawsuit in federal district court charging discrimination. County attorneys negotiated a settlement under which the county would adopt legislation essentially permitting the project to proceed...

Newsweek Criticized For Article On Obama As the Antichrist

Posted on November 19, 2008
This week's issue of Newsweek carries an article titled Is Obama the Antichrist? The article reports on various signs pointed to by Christian millennialists leading them to the conclusion that the president-elect is the world leader who will usher in the great battle, the Rapture and the Second Coming...

Holder of Sharia Law Degree Becomes Egypt's First Woman Marriage Registrar

Posted on November 19, 2008
Al Jazeera yesterday published an interview with Amal Soliman, the first woman in Egypt to be appointed as a Mazouna, or female marriage registrar. Registrars conduct wedding ceremonies, recite verses from the Quran at the ceremony and sign the official certificates making the marriage legally binding...

Indiana's Sale of "In God We Trust" Plates Without Added Fee Is Upheld

Posted on November 18, 2008
In Studler v. Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, (IN Ct. App., Nov. 17, 2008), an Indiana state appellate court rejected a challenge to Indiana's sale of "In God We Trust" license plates to motorists without charging the $15 administrative fee that is added to the cost of most other special plates...

Religious Groups Ask California Supreme Court To Void Proposition 8

Posted on November 18, 2008
Yesterday the California Council of Churches along with a number of liberal Protestant and Jewish groups filed a "Petition for Writ of Mandate or Prohibition" (full text) with the California Supreme Court seeking to prevent enforcement of Proposition 8 that was approved by voters earlier this month...

German Homeschoolers Seek Political Asylum In U.S.

Posted on November 18, 2008
In Germany, children are required to attend public school and home schooling is banned. Uwe and Hannelore Romeike who homeschool their children recently left Germany for the United States in order to avoid fines, jail and possible loss of custody of their children...

Town Sued Over Zoning Ban Preventing Church From Sheltering Homeless

Posted on November 18, 2008
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Pennsylvania ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court yesterday on behalf of First Apostles Doctrine Church of Brookville, Pennsylvania. The church and its pastor, Rev. Jack L. Wisor, want to use the church as a homeless shelter, saying providing shelter to "guests" is part of its ministry...

French Appellate Court Reverses Controversial Annulment

Posted on November 18, 2008
An appellate court in Douai in northern France yesterday reversed a decision by a lower court that had granted a Muslim husband an annulment when he discovered that his wife was not the virgin she had claimed to be. The lower court had held that the husband was misled "concerning essential qualities" of his wife...

British Employment Appeal Tribunal Broadly Protects Against Religious Bias

Posted on November 18, 2008
In Saini v. All Saints Haque Centre, (UK Empl. App. Trib., Oct. 24, 2008), a British Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 were violated when Employee A is mistreated for the purpose of seeking to get rid of Employee B on the grounds of Employee B's religion...

HHS Proposal on Religious Objectors Opposed by Some EEOC Members

Posted on November 18, 2008
Today's New York Times reports on the many comment letters that the Department of Health and Human Services has received on its proposed regulations designed to protect conscience rights of doctors and other health care providers participating in programs receiving HHS funding...

Nigerian Court Orders Release of Man Arrested For Having 86 Wives

Posted on November 17, 2008
IBN reports today that Nigeria's Federal High Court has ordered the unconditional release of Mohammed Bello Abubakar. The 84-year old man had been arrested and charged with "insulting religious" creed and "unlawful marriages" after local Muslim leaders ordered him to divorce 82 of his 86 wives...

Court Supervised Election of Buddhist Temple Board Upheld

Posted on November 17, 2008
In Wat Phra Buddha Chinnaraj Buddhist Temple v. Ketpongsuda, (CA Ct. App., Nov. 14, 2008), a California Court of Appeals upheld a trial court's resolution of a dispute over control of a Buddhist Temple in Chino Hills, CA. The trial court found that bylaws adopted in 1996 were the governing instrument and that later revisions were not properly adopted...

Seven Amish Men Convicted For Refusing To Use Safety Emblem

Posted on November 17, 2008
After an all-day trial in a Graves County court in Mayfield, Kentucky, seven Amish men were convicted Friday of refusing to use the state-mandated orange "slow-moving vehicle" emblem on their horse-drawn buggies. They were fined a total of $250. Objecting to bright colors, they are willing only to use gray tape, plus lanterns at night...

Recent On-Topic Scholarly Articles and Book

Posted on November 17, 2008
From SSRN:Paul Horwitz, The Philosopher's Brief, (Constitutional Commentary, Forthcoming). Thomas Charles Berg, Religious Organizational Freedom and Conditions on Government Benefits, (Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy, 2009).Perry Dane, West Virginia State Board of Education V...

Will Prince Charles Eventually Have Religiously More Inclusive Title?

Posted on November 17, 2008
According to an article in yesterday in Religious Intelligence, recent reports that Britain's Prince Charles would change the Coronation Oath to make it more multi-faith when he eventually becomes king are unfounded. Britain's monarch is head of the Church of England as well as head of state...

Boy At Center of D.C. Hospital's Suit Buried After Heart-Lung Functions Ends

Posted on November 17, 2008
AP reported yesterday that 12-year old Motl Brody died Saturday and was buried on Sunday in Brooklyn, NY. Brody was at the center of a pending lawsuit in Washington, D.C. (See prior posting.) Children's National Medical Center was seeking court approval to disconnect the boy's ventilator because he was pronounced brain dead...

German Professor of Islamic Theolgy Says Muhammad Never Existed

Posted on November 16, 2008
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal reports on Prof. Muhammad Sven Kalisch, head of the Center for Religious Studies at Germany's Munster University. A convert to Islam, Kalisch is Germany's first professor of Islamic theology. Hired to apply Western scholarship to Islamic studies, he has now concluded that the Prophet Muhammad probably never existed...

Challenge To Religious Workers Visa Provisions Moves Ahead

Posted on November 16, 2008
In Ruiz-Diaz v. United States, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91967 (WD WA, Oct. 31, 2008), a Washington federal district court denied defendants' motion to dismiss a class action brought on behalf of certain foreigners in the United States who are seeking Religious Worker visas and by three religious organizations that employed them...

Muslim Deli Owner Charges Yonkers Police With Selective Enforcement

Posted on November 16, 2008
A Yonkers, New York delicatessen owner has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against 14 Yonkers police officers. According to Friday's Lower Hudson Journal News, Haifa Tamimi says police engaged in selective enforcement against her of a city ordinance requiring businesses to close between midnight and 6 a...

Court Upholds Jurisdiction To Decide Which Faction Controls Church Property

Posted on November 16, 2008
Avondale Church of Christ v. Merrill Lynch, (TN Ct. App., Nov. 10, 2008) involves a dispute between two factions of a congregationally governed church. The dispute developed after the minister selected new leadership for the congregation. A Tennessee state appellate court affirmed the trial court's jurisdiction to decide who should control church funds and property and held that it acted properly in ordering a vote of the membership on that issue...

Recently Available Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on November 16, 2008
In Charleston v. Rojas, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 91573 (CD IL, Nov. 12, 2008), an Illinois federal district court dismissed an inmate's complaint that authorities denied his request for a vegan diet for religious reasons. the court found that plaintiff had not exhausted his administrative remedies...

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