Religion & Law

Florida Supreme Court Issues Opinion On Exclusion of Ballot Issues

Posted on September 16, 2008
As previously reported, earlier this month the Florida Supreme Court enjoined state officials from including on the November ballot two proposed state constitutional amendments-- one that would have eliminated Florida's Blaine Amendment and assured equal participation in public programs by religious organizations, the other that would have reversed the state's ban on school vouchers...

Church Sues Wisconsin School District Over Facility Rental Policy

Posted on September 16, 2008
In Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, the Open Door Church filed suit in federal court last week against the Sun Prairie Area School District (full text of complaint) challenging its policy on charging fees for use of school facilities for after-school religious activities...

Experts' Conference Rejects New Speech Limits To Protect Religions

Posted on September 16, 2008
The 10th conference of the International Religious Liberty Group of Experts met in Bucharest, Romania, September 8-10. A report yesterday from Adventist News Network says that the conference focused on efforts around the world to ban hate speech and enact defamation of religion laws...

Preacher's Campus Activities In Designated Public Forum Upheld

Posted on September 16, 2008
In Davis v. Stratton, (ND NY, Sept. 9, 2008), a New York federal district court held that the Quad area at Schenectady County (NY) Community College is a "designated public forum" that is open to both students and non-students as a place for expressive activities...

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9th Circuit Faults Immigration Judge For Assumptions About Religious Group

Posted on September 16, 2008
In Cosa v. Mukasey, (9th Cir., Sept. 15, 2008), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated an adverse credibility finding by an Immigration Judge and remanded for further proceedings an asylum petition by a woman who claimed she suffered religious persecution in Romania...

Anglican Break-Away Churches In Canada Sue Over Property Ownership

Posted on September 16, 2008
In Canada earlier this month, three break-away Anglican parishes in the Vancouver (BC) metro area, along with their clergy and lay leaders, filed suit against the Diocese of New Westminster in British Columbia's Supreme Court. Anglican Journal reported yesterday on the dispute...

Evangelist Sues Challenging Florida City's Speech Permit Law

Posted on September 16, 2008
A travelling Christian evangelist, Martin Mikhail, yesterday filed suit in federal district court against the City of Lake Worth, Florida, challenging the city's ordinance that requires application to be made 60 days in advance for a special event permit in order to speak on public streets...

Nigerian Sharia Court Arraigns Man With 86 Wives For Insulting Religion

Posted on September 16, 2008
In Nigeria on Monday, an Upper Sharia Court in Minna arraigned 84-year old Mallam Abubakar Bello Masaba on charges of insulting or inciting to contempt of religious creed, deceitfully inducing belief of lawful marriage, and marriage ceremony without lawful marriage...

Church Cannot Raise Exempt Status As Defense In Tax Case

Posted on September 15, 2008
In Grace Memorial Baptist Church v. Harris County, (TX Ct. App., Aug. 28, 2008), a Texas Court of Appeals held that a church that had failed to follow the proper procedures to apply for a property tax exemption could not raise its alleged exempt status as a defense in a suit to collect delinquent taxes from it.

Controversial DVD On Radical Islam Distributed As Newspaper Insert

Posted on September 15, 2008
Jews on First reported yesterday that a recently formed group called Clarion Fund is spending millions of dollars distributing the DVD Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West as an insert in some 70 national and major city newspapers, particularly in swing states in the Presidential election...

Yemeni Women React To Vice and Virtue Committee and Parliamentary Quotas

Posted on September 15, 2008
In Yemen in July, religious and tribal leaders announced the formation of a Vice and Virtue Committee to report violations of Islamic law to police, and to oppose the government's plan to encourage political participation by women. (BBC News).One of the Committee's first actions was to issue a fatwa (legal pronouncement) against the government's planned quota system that would allocate 15% of the seats in Parliament to women...

Islamic Panels In Britain Operating Under Arbitration Act

Posted on September 15, 2008
Under Britain's Arbitration Act 1996, a High Court may enforce an award made by an arbitration tribunal pursuant to an arbitration agreement. Yesterday's Daily Mail reports that lawyer Sheikh Faiz-ul-Aqtab Siddiqi has set up Muslim Arbitration Panels in five cities-- London, Bradford, Manchester, Birmingham and Nuneaton...

Tribe Says Use Permit Requirement For Powwow Violates Religious Freedom

Posted on September 15, 2008
Yesterday's NWF Daily News (Ft. Walton, FL) reports that the ACLU is challenging a decision by Santa Rosa County (FL) requiring the state's Echota Cherokee Indian Tribe to obtain a permit to hold a powwow on private property. In a letter to the county division of zoning and planning, the ACLU said that the powwow is a seasonal outdoor ceremony during which participants sing, dance, worship the creator, and strengthen tribal bonds...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on September 15, 2008
From SSRN:Haider Ala Hamoudi, Book Review: Orientalism and 'The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State', (Middle East Law and Governance: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, Sept. 10, 2008).Robert A. Kahn, Are Muslims the New Catholics? Europe's Headscarf Laws in Comparative Historical Perspective, (U of St...

Falklands Legislature Debates Religion Provisions In Draft Constitution

Posted on September 15, 2008
The Falkland Islands is in the process of debating and adopting a new Constitution. A special meeting of the Legislative Council was held on Sept. 12 to debate the draft document. A transcript of the debate published by the South Atlantic Remote Territories Media Association reveals extensive discussion on clauses relating to freedom of conscience and religious instruction of children in schools...

Camboida Will Permit Muslim Students To Wear Headscarves

Posted on September 14, 2008
The Phnom Penh Post reported yesterday that Cambodia's Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth has decided that Khmer Muslim students will be permitted to deviate from school uniform rules and wear their traditional clothing, including headscarves, to school when classes begin next month...

Recently Available Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on September 14, 2008
In Thaxton v. Strode, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68588 (WD KY, Sept. 9, 2008), a Kentucky federal district court upheld a prison's policy of permitting non-Muslim inmates to attend Muslim religious sevices only after attending an inmate-run Muslim familiarization program...

Suit Challenges USDA's Animal Tagging On Religious Freedom Grounds

Posted on September 13, 2008
Earlier this week, a lawsuit was filed in federal district court in the District of Columbia challenging implementation and enforcement by Michigan of the USDA's National Animal Identification System for cattle. The complaint (full text) in Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund v...

Pope Addresses French Intellectuals On Theology and European Culture

Posted on September 13, 2008
On Friday on the first day of his visit to France, Pope Benedict XVI addressed "650 intellectuals, artists and scientists" at the College des Bernardins. (M&C). America Magazine assessed the address: The Pope in Paris yesterday gave a speech which will be remembered as one of his most significant, not just because of its content ? which has recast the current European thinking about freedom and faith ? but because of its historic context...

Settlement Reached In Suit By Interfaith Group Feeding Homeless In California Park

Posted on September 13, 2008
KNBC News reported today that a settlement has been reached in the lawsuit brought by Interfaith Needs Network challenging the constitutionality of California's limits on public assemblies and demonstrations in state parks. The group was told they needed a permit to hold an event to feed the homeless at Donehy State Park...

Saudi Judicial Head Says Islamic Law OK's Killing of TV Broadcasters

Posted on September 13, 2008
Yahoo News reported yesterday that the head of Saudi Arabia's Supreme Judiciary Council says that it is permissible under Islamic law to kill owners of satellite TV channels that broadcast programs calling for immoral conduct. During Thursday's "Light in the Path" radio program, Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan responded to a listener's question by saying: "What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity? Those calling for corrupt beliefs, certainly it's permissible to kill them...

Japan's High Court Says Pet Funeral Fees Are Taxable Income To Buddhist Temples

Posted on September 12, 2008
AFP today reports that Japan's Supreme Court has ruled that fees paid to Buddhist monks for pet funerals are not tax exempt income. Growing in popularity, the Jimyoin temple in Aichi offers last rites for animals similar to traditional Buddhist funerals...

Good News Club Sues Minnesota School District

Posted on September 12, 2008
Yesterday, Child Evangelism Fellowship of Minnesota filed a federal lawsuit against Minnesota's Elk River Area School District alleging that the school district discriminated against its Good News Club--a faith based after-school program for elementary students teaching citizenship and character development from a Biblical viewpoint...

Faith-Based Treatment Group Wins $968K In Suit Over Zoning Denial

Posted on September 12, 2008
Yesterday in Nashville, Tennessee a federal court jury awarded damages totalling $967,995 to Teen Challenge, a faith-based Christian drug addiction treatment program. According to a release by American Center for Law and Justice, and a report yesterday by the Tennessean, the jury found that Metro Nashville government violated the equal protection clause, the Fair Housing Act and the Americans With Disabilities Act when it changed its zoning laws to prevent the group from building a treatment center on 13 acres of land it had purchased...

Italian Prosecutors Charge Satirist With Offending the Pope

Posted on September 12, 2008
The Lateran Pacts of 1929 between Italy and the Vatican provides (Conciliation Treaty, Art. 8) that: "All offences or public insults committed within Italian territory against the person of the Supreme Pontiff, whether by means of speeches, acts, or writings, shall be punished in the same manner as offences and insults against the person of the King...

10th Circuit: No Establishment Clause Violation In Las Cruces Logo

Posted on September 12, 2008
Today in Weinbaum v. City of Las Cruces, (10th Cir., Sept. 12, 2008), the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of two cases challenging the display of three Latin crosses as a symbol of Las Cruces, New Mexico. In one case, plaintiffs challenged use of the crosses as the city's symbol...

Pope In France Calls for New Reflection On Laicite

Posted on September 12, 2008
Pope Benedict XVI arrived today for a four-day visit to France. The New York Times and Catholic News Service report on the Pope's message (full text) at the Elysee Palace official welcoming ceremony. Focusing on France's tradition of secularism (laïcité), the Pope said: Many people, here in France as elsewhere, have reflected on the relations between Church and State...

9th Circuit Amplifes Holding On Membership Requirements Of Christian Student Group

Posted on September 11, 2008
This week the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals filed an amended decision in Truth v. Kent School District (9th Cir., Sept. 9, 2008). (See prior posting on original April 25 opinion.) The new decision adds a concurring opinion by two of the three judges-- which of course makes it a majority opinion...

Washington Governor Candidates Speak Out On Religious and Social Issues

Posted on September 11, 2008
Yesterday's Seattle Times published an interview on social and religious issues with the two candidates for Governor of Washington state. Incumbent Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire, a Catholic, said she is pro-choice. She added: "I'm not going to have my religion determine what I do as governor...

UN Rapporteur Focuses On Religious Freedom In Turkmenistan

Posted on September 11, 2008
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Asma Jahangir, has completed a fact-finding trip to Turkmenistan according to a UN News Centre report yesterday. Jahangir issued a report saying that Turkmenistan has begun to set up mechanisms to deal with human rights issues...

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