Religion & Law

In Romania, Priests Try To Unionize

Posted on June 20, 2008
In northeastern Romania, 20 Romanian Orthodox Church priests have formed a labor union to seek higher pay and the right to make decisions without diocesan approval. ENI reported yesterday that the priests have applied to a court in Iasi to register their organization, the Mother of God Protection union...

Blackwater Urges US Court To Apply Afghanistan's Shari'a In Plane Crash Lawsuit

Posted on June 19, 2008
Today's Raleigh News Observer reports on an interesting choice of law argument being raised in in a North Carolina federal district court case. The private military firm Blackwater is being sued by the widows of three American soldiers who died in a plane operate by the Blackwater affiliate, Presidential Airways...

Ohio Township Says Churches Can Use Park Amphitheater

Posted on June 19, 2008
Miami Township, Ohio trustees have adopted a policy making it clear that churches can use its park amphitheater on the same basis as other non-profit groups. Today's Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the township decided it need a clear policy after the Clermont County (OH) public library was sued for barring use of its meeting rooms for religious events...

Claim That Pollution Infringes Free Exercise Summarily Dismissed

Posted on June 19, 2008
In West v. United States Secretary of Defense, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 46565 (WD WA, June 13, 2008), a pro se plaintiff challenged various aspects of a dredging project and cargo yard improvements in Olympia, Washington. In the case, a Washington federal district judge summarily dismissed plaintiff's claim that the dredging work caused pollution that violated his "right to life" and therefore his First Amendment free exercise of religion.

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Pakistan Court Imposes Death Sentence For Blasphemy, But Execution Unlikely

Posted on June 19, 2008
In Sialkot, Pakistan yesterday, according to the AP, a judge imposed the death sentence on a Muslim man, Shafeeq Latif, for making derogatory remarks about the Prophet Muhammad. Separately Latif was sentenced to life in prison and a fine for desecrating pages of the Quran...

Motion Seeks To Clear Names of Two Islamic Charities

Posted on June 19, 2008
In an unusual motion filed yesterday in federal district court in Texas, the ACLU of Texas is helping two mainstream Muslim charities clear their names. (ACLU press release). In its prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation, the federal government in a pre-trial brief filed last May named the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) as unindicted co-conspirators...

Group Asks Wisconsin Legislature To End Opening Prayers

Posted on June 19, 2008
According to yesterday's Green Bay Press Gazette, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has asked Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch to end the long-standing practice of opening sessions with prayers. Under current practice, members of the Assembly sign up to either personally lead a prayer or have a constituent do so...

Obama Campaign Apologizes Over Refusal To Seat Muslim Women In TV View

Posted on June 19, 2008
The Barack Obama campaign has apologized to two Muslim women after campaign volunteers refused to seat the women, who were wearing Muslim headscarves, directly behind Obama at a Detroit rally on Monday. Staffers generally pick those who will sit behind the podium, and who will therefore be seen on television in the background as the candidate speaks...

In Russia, Course For Teachers Spreads "Blood Libel"

Posted on June 18, 2008
Two years ago, schools in four areas of Russia began teaching required courses in Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture. (See prior posting.) Last week the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union reported on a troubling series of lectures presented at Tyumen State Oil-Gas University designed to train future teachers of the course...

Pro-Life Pharmacies Are New Trend

Posted on June 18, 2008
Monday's Washington Post reported on a new trend in accommodating the religious concerns of pharmacists-- the opening of "pro-life drug stores" like DMC Pharmacy in Chantilly, Virginia. These pharmacies do not stock some or all forms of contraceptives...

Canadian Doctors At Odds With Jewish Family Over Continuing Life Support

Posted on June 18, 2008
Since last November, the family of 84-year Samuel Golubchuck, an Orthodox Jew, has been battling with Canadian doctors over whether Golubchuck should be kept on life support. Doctors want to take him off of life support, but the family says this contradicts their religious beliefs that forbid the hastening of death...

Science Teacher and School Officials Sued Over Teaching of Religion In Classroom

Posted on June 18, 2008
On Friday, a federal lawsuit was filed against controversial Mt. Vernon, Ohio middle school science teacher John Freshwater. District superintendent Steve Short and middle school Principal William White were also named as defendants in the suit claiming that Freshwater taught religion in his classroom and that school officials failed to discipline him for doing so...

Canada's Human Rights Commission Studying Approaches To Internet Hate Speech

Posted on June 18, 2008
Canada's Human Rights Commission is launching a review of how it handles complaints of Internet hate speech, according to today's National Post. In the wake of at least three cases involving complaints by Muslim groups about articles or cartoons appearing online, the Commission has asked University of Windsor Law Professor Richard Moon to conduct the study...

Church Sues Plano, Texas Over Acreage Requirement for Churches

Posted on June 18, 2008
Yesterday's Plano (TX) Courier Star reports on a lawsuit filed by the 50-member Vietnamese Baptist Church against the City of Plano challenging the Board of Adjustment's denial of an occupancy permit to the church. The city will not permit the church to have electricity and water service at the building it recently purchased for $400,000...

Clash Between Religious Liberty and Same-Sex Equality Explored

Posted on June 17, 2008
As gay marriages began to be performed in California yesterday under a recent state Supreme Court ruling (New York Times), commentators focused on the potential clash between religious liberty and equality for gays and lesbians. Yesterday NPR reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty produced a piece on Morning Edition focusing on the issue-- with special emphasis on the refusal of Ocean Grove, New Jersey's Methodist-run Camp Meeting Association to permit its Pavilion to be used for same-sex wedding ceremonies...

Louisiana Legislature Passes Controversial Science Education Act

Posted on June 17, 2008
AP reports that the Louisiana Senate yesterday, by a vote of 36-0, passed and sent to the governor for his signature SB 733, the Louisiana Science Education Act. The bill provides that the state board of education shall, upon request from a local school board, assist schools in promoting "critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories being studied including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning...

Cert Granted In Case Charging Religious Discrimination In Arrest Conditions

Posted on June 17, 2008
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, (Docket No. 07-1015) (Order List). The case involves claims by a Pakistani arrested in New York after the 9-11 attacks, who alleged that harsh conditions of confinement were imposed based on religious and ethnic criteria used to identify "high interest" suspects...

Turkey's AKP Files Defense In Constitutional Court

Posted on June 17, 2008
Yesterday Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) submitted a 98-page defense response (full text) to Turkey's Constitutional Court in the prosecution charging it with undermining the secular principles enshrined in Turkey's Constitution. (See prior posting...

Kmiec Discusses Abortion Views of Obama and McCain

Posted on June 17, 2008
Catholic Online today publishes a fascinating interview with law professor Doug Kmiec who recently attended, along with some 30 religious leaders, a meeting with Barack Obama. (See prior posting.) Kmiec focuses on the two candidates' views on abortion...

Cert. Filed In Case On Parental Objection To School Talking About Gay Couples

Posted on June 17, 2008
A petition for certiorari in Parker v. Hurley was filed earlier this month according to the New England Blade. In the case, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals rejected objections by parents that they were not given an opportunity to exempt their elementary school children from exposure to books depicting same-gender couples...

USCIRF Continues To Challenge Saudi Texts Used At Islamic Academy In Virginia

Posted on June 16, 2008
Last week (June 11) the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) issued a long press release indicating that Arabic-language textbooks used at a Saudi government school in Northern Virginia, the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), still contain a number of passages that incite religious intolerance and violence...

Q&A Discusses Church Property Dispute Cases

Posted on June 16, 2008
Last week, the Pew Forum published an informative Q&A with George Washington University Prof. Robert Tuttle on church property disputes. In it Tuttle discusses the two legal approaches-- deference to church hierarchy and neutral principles-- that courts may constitutionally apply...

Saudi Religious Police Challenged In Lawsuits By Human Rights Lawyer

Posted on June 16, 2008
Saudi human rights lawyer Abdel Rahman Al-Lahem says that he has filed an appeal to challenge the acquittal of two members of Saudi Arabia's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Yesterday Reuters and AFP reported that Lahem said he filed the appeal on June 4 after the verdict in the case of the death of Suleiman al-Huraisi was confirmed...

Recent Scholarly Articles and Book of Interest

Posted on June 16, 2008
From SSRN:Adrien K. Wing & Ozan O. Varol, Is Secularism Possible in a Majority-Muslim Country?: The Turkish Example, (U Iowa Legal Studies Research Paper No. 08-17, 2008).Nina J. Crimm, The Moral Hazard of Anti-Terrorism Financing Measures: A Potential to Compromise Civil Societies and National Interests, (Wake Forest Law Review, Vol...

Iraqi Translator Told he Cannot Keep Two Wives In Denmark

Posted on June 16, 2008
Russia Today reported on Monday that an Iraqi translator who had been offered asylum in Denmark is now being told that he cannot say in Denmark unless he divorces one of his two wives. He married his both wives under Islamic law in Iraq and brought them with him to Denmark...

Fall-Out From Obama's Church Resignation Continues

Posted on June 15, 2008
Today's Washington Post carries an interesting front page story on the aftermath of Barack Obama's resignation from Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. The church's new pastor, Otis Moss III, released a statement earlier this month reflecting the church's view of events: "We are a wounded people and our wounds, the bruises from our encounter with history, have scarred our very souls...

Artist Changes Name to "In God We Trust"

Posted on June 15, 2008
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, a Lake County, Illinois judge on Friday approved Steve Kreuscher's petition to change his name to "In God We Trust". The former Mr. Kreuscher says he was looking for a sign from God that the name change was a good idea...

New Blog On Religious Liberty Launched

Posted on June 15, 2008
Welcome to the blogosphere to a new blog of interest-- ReligiousLiberty.TV. Its editor, Michael D. Peabody, describes it as an "independent online resource for news, information, commentary, and insights on contemporary issues involving the free exercise and establishment clauses of the United States Constitution...

DC Circuit Says Chabad Can Proceed Against Russia On Claims To Two Book Collections

Posted on June 15, 2008
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday held that the parent organization for the Orthodox Jewish Chabad movement can pursue its claims against the Russian government to recover two historic collections of Jewish religious books and manuscripts. One collection, known as the "Library", was seized by Russia's Bolshevik government in 1917...

Preacher Sentenced For Demonstrating In Restricted Area

Posted on June 15, 2008
Michael A. Marcavage, director of Repent America, was fined $420 and placed on one year's probation after a 2-day bench trial by a magistrate in a Pennsylvania federal court. Today's Wilkes Barre Times Leader and yesterday's Philadelphia Daily News report that Marcavage was charged with violating a verbal permit and interfering with park rangers after demonstrating last October on a sidewalk in Philadelphia near the Liberty Bell...

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