Religion & Law

Israeli Prison Rabbis Report Successes In Obtaining "Gets" For Wives

Posted on July 11, 2008
In Israel, government authorities are taking strong action against estranged husbands who refuse to sign a "get" (Jewish divorce document) granting their wives a religious divorce. In some cases, religious courts order the men to jail until they sign...

Michigan Church Wins Zoning Challenge In Settlement

Posted on July 10, 2008
Alliance Defense Fund yesterday announced a settlement in Celebration Community Church v. City of Muskegon, (WD MI, filed March 2008) (full text of complaint). Celebration Church challenged the city's denial to it of a special use permit so it could use a former automobile dealership it purchased as a church...

Obama Campaign's Religious Affairs Director Profiled

Posted on July 10, 2008
Today's Boston Globe profiles 25-year old Joshua Dubois, religious affairs director for the Barack Obama campaign. With a staff of 4 employees and 6 interns, he has organized some 200 town hall meetings and is beginning a series of smaller house parties to discuss the campaign and values issues...

Minority Religions Face Burial Problems In Kyrgyzstan

Posted on July 10, 2008
Forum 18 reports today on the problems faced in Kyrgyzstan by members of non-Muslim faiths in burying their dead. A fatwa issued by the country's Muftiate bars non-Muslims from being buried in Muslim cemeteries. Cemeteries are run by local governments and particularly in rural areas, often Muslim cemeteries are the only ones available...

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Poll Contrasts Views On Sharia In Iran, Egypt, Turkey

Posted on July 10, 2008
Today the Muslim-West Facts Initiative (a collaboration of the Gallup polling organization and the Coexist Foundation) published the first in a series of articles on views toward Islamic Sharia law in Iran, Egypt, and Turkey. The article is based on extensive polling data from last year...

3rd Circuit Finds Prison Music Policy Does Not Violate Establishment Clause

Posted on July 10, 2008
In Young v. Beard, (3rd Cir., July 8, 2008), the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a prisoner's free expression and Establishment Clause challenges to the Pennsylvania prison system's policy on recreational music for prisoners. After criticism of the state's prior policy that allowed independent inmate bands, the Department of Corrections changed its policy to allow only individual music playing in cells or institutional musical groups that can play at an annual talent show or special events...

Gaer Elected New Chair of USCIRF

Posted on July 09, 2008
Last week, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom announced the election of Felice D. Gaer as chair for the coming year beginning July 1. She succeeds Michael Cromartie who will serve as vice-chair along with Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou...

Muslim Woman Sues For Employment Discrimination

Posted on July 09, 2008
Yesterday a Sacramento, California Muslim woman filed suit in state court charging National Credit Acceptance, Inc. with employment discrimination. The complaint in Southavilay v. National Credit Acceptance, Inc., (CA Super. Ct., filed July 8, 2008), alleges that Zaylanin Southavilay was told she could not continue working as a telephone debt collector with National Credit Acceptance if she continued to wear a hijab (Islamic headscarf)...

Hungary's Constitutional Court Strikes Down Hate Speech Amendments

Posted on July 09, 2008
The Budapest Times reports that Hungary's Constitutional Court last week ruled two amendments added last year to Hungary's "hate speech" law unconstitutional. One amendment allowed suits to be brought against a speaker who directed inflammatory speech broadly against a person's religious or ethnic group...

Swiss Referendum on Banning Minaret Construction Will Be Held

Posted on July 09, 2008
The AP reported yesterday that in Switzerland, members of two right-wing parties have obtained enough signatures to force a nationwide referendum on banning construction of minarets. Members of the Swiss People's Party and the Federal Democratic Union say the minaret is a symbol of an Islamic political and religious claim to power...

India, Under Christian Pressure, Blocks Migration of Bene Menashe To Israel

Posted on July 09, 2008
IANS reports today that the Indian government has refused to grant permission for nearly 200 Bnei Menashe members to emigrate from the country's northeaster state of Mizoram to Israel. After the Bene Menashe were recognized by the Israeli rabbinate as descendants of ancient Israelites, a group of rabbis came to India and converted the Mizo Jews-- who had been born as Christians...

Defense Department Moves To Dismiss Suit Claiming Religious Discrimination

Posted on July 09, 2008
God and Country blog reports that yesterday the Defense Department filed a motion to dismiss and a memorandum in support of the motion (full text) in Hall v. Welborn. In March, Jeremy Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed suit in federal district court in Kansas claiming that a meeting of atheists and freethinkers organized by Hall in Iraq was interrupted by an Army major, and that Hall was not recommended for promotion because his platoon sergeant thought he would be "unable to put aside his personal convictions and pray with his troops" and would have trouble bonding with them...

Lawsuit Challenges Publishers' Translation of Bible Verse

Posted on July 09, 2008
An unusual pair of federal lawsuits filed pro se by a Michigan man complain about the translation of a passage in I Corinthians in versions of the Bible from two publishers. The verse, I Corinthians 6:9, describes those who will not inherit the kingdom of God...

Christian Group Runs Controversial Ad Against New Colorado Law

Posted on July 08, 2008
In May, Colorado's Governor Bill Ritter signed Colorado SB 200 which, among other things, prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public accommodations. The new law defines "sexual orientation" to include transgender status. Seizing on this, the Christian group Focus on the Family is now running a controversial advertising campaign against the bill in Colorado newspapers...

Court Dismisses Free Exercise Challenge To Park Service Permit Regulations

Posted on July 08, 2008
In Nenninger v. United States Forest Service, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51212 (WD AR, July 3, 2008), an Arkansas federal district court dismissed a challenge to U.S. Forest Service regulations requiring a special permit for large noncommercial gatherings on Forest System lands...

Ahmadis Sue Maryland Town Over Zoning Denial

Posted on July 08, 2008
In Baltimore, Maryland yesterday, developer David Moxley filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the decision of the Walkersville (MD) Board of Zoning Appeals to deny a special exception to land use restrictions sought by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA...

Police Require Orthodox Jewish Woman To Remove Wig For Arrest Photo

Posted on July 08, 2008
In Ramapo, New York, members of the town's Hasidic Jewish community are protesting action of the police department in its arrest of an Orthodox Jewish woman, Sarah Cohen. The woman, charged with welfare fraud, was required to remove her wig for an arrest photograph...

Folk Religions Get Very Different Treatments Around the World

Posted on July 08, 2008
Reports this week from opposite sides of the world reflect the rather disparate views of folk religions by varying legal systems. Today's New York Times reports that in Tajikistan, a new law passed early this year outlaws traditional fortune telling. The "fate viewer"-- who also sometimes prescribes folk remedies-- is a centuries-old profession in the country...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on July 07, 2008
In Tyson v. Guisto, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49528 (D OR, June 27, 2008), an Oregon federal district court rejected claims by two Muslim prisoners that their rights under the First Amendment and RLUIPA were violated when authorities temporarily held Jum'ah prayers on Sunday instead of Friday, did not hire an Imam, and allowed non-Muslims to prepare Halal meals...

EC Adopts Anti-Discrimination Directive

Posted on July 07, 2008
On July 2, the European Commission announced its adoption of a proposed anti-discrimination directive that broadly prohibits discrimination on various grounds, including religion. The EC announcement read in part: the Commission adopted a proposal for a directive which provides for protection from discrimination on grounds of age, disability, sexual orientation and religion or belief beyond the workplace...

New Scholarly Articles and Books of Interest Abound

Posted on July 07, 2008
From SSRN:Ayelet Shachar, Privatizing Diversity: A Cautionary Tale from Religious Arbitration in Family Law, (June 25, 2008, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 573-607, 2008).Katja Rost, Emil Inauen, Margit Osterloh & Bruno S. Frey, The Corporate Governance of Benedictine Abbeys: What Can Stock Corporations Learn from Monasteries?, (May 25, 2008)...

Israeli Court-Approved Compromise On Autopsies May Be Solution To Future Cases

Posted on July 07, 2008
Arutz Sheva today reports on an interesting compromise worked out in the courts last week that may act as precedent in dealing with religious objections to autopsies. After the wife of the rabbi of the Yemenite Jewish community is the city of Ashkelon was murdered, authorities insisted they needed an autopsy to determine the cause of death...

Church Sues To Challenge Zoning Denial

Posted on July 07, 2008
The Danbury (CT) News-Times today reports that a Christian congregation, His Vineyard, Inc., has filed suit in state court-- apparently under RLUIPA-- challenging Danbury's denial of a request for a variance. The church wants to build in an area zoned industrial...

Bush, Fukuda Will Both Attend Olympics Opening Despite Human Rights Concerns

Posted on July 06, 2008
In a joint press conference today (full text) with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, President George W. Bush defended his decision to attend the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics next month. As reported by CNN, Bush took the position in the face of decisions by some European leaders to boycott the opening ceremonies to protest human rights violations in China...

Historian Says Links Between Democrats and Evangelicals Have Deep Roots

Posted on July 06, 2008
Historian Ted Widmer writes a piece in today's New York Times Magazine titled Redemption Politics in which he makes the case that Barack Obama's outreach to evangelicals has deep roots in American history. He writes in part: Maybe the distance between liberals and evangelicals, each eternal optimists in their way, is much smaller than we realized...

Canadian Human Rights Commission Dismisses Charges Against Catholic Magazine

Posted on July 06, 2008
Catholic Insight reports that the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) has dismissed a complaint brought against it by Rob Wells, a member of the Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Pride Center of Edmonton. (See prior posting.) Wells claimed violations of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act because of some 108 articles and reports on Catholic Insight's website...

Civil-Religious Courts Clash Again In Indonesia

Posted on July 06, 2008
In Malaysia, the ongoing tension between jurisdiction of civil and religious courts has come to the fore in the case of an ethnic Indian, Elangeswaran Benedict, who committed suicide. Indo Asian News Service reported yesterday that when Benedict's family sought to claim his body from the Parit Buntar Hospital in Kuala Lumpur, they were told that they could not take the body for Hindu cremation rites because Benedict was a Muslim convert...

Court Upholds Restraining Order Against Autistic Teen At Services

Posted on July 06, 2008
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported last week on a decision issued June 27 by a Todd County, Minnesota state District Court. Siding with the Church of St. Joseph in Bertha (MN), the court upheld a May 13 restraining order barring 13-year old Adam Race from attending church...

Press Groups Support En Banc Reivew In Eagle Case

Posted on July 04, 2008
Defendant Winslow Friday is asking the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals for en banc review of a decision that upheld his prosecution under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act for killing of an eagle to use in a tribal sun dance. (See prior posting...

Town Tries To Stop Catholic Radio Station After It Ends Ecumenical Programs

Posted on July 04, 2008
In Burlington, Connecticut, the town's planning and zoning commission has voted to issue a cease-and-desist order to prevent the Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford from continuing to use a radio tower on Johnnycake Mountain to transmit programming on its radio station, WJMJ-FM...

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