Religion & Law

Former Screen Star Convicted By French Court of Inciting Hatred

Posted on June 04, 2008
Former screen star, now animal rights activist, Brigitte Bardot yesterday was fined over $23,000 by a French court for provoking discrimination and racial hatred against Muslims. She was also ordered to pay $1,555 in damages to MRAP, a French anti-racism group...

Canadian Provincial AG Agains Considering Charges Against FLDS

Posted on June 03, 2008
Despite recommendations by two earlier special prosecutors that charges not be filed until the law is clarified, the Canadian Press reported yesterday that British Columbia Attorney General Wally Oppal is appointing yet another special prosecutor to determine whether polygamy and sexual abuse charges should be brought against members of the FLDS community in Bountiful, B...

Consent Judgment Entered In Louisiana Gideon Bible Case

Posted on June 03, 2008
A Consent Judgment (full text) has been entered by a Louisiana federal district court in Roe v. Tangipahoa Parish School Board, (ED LA, May 28, 2008). The decree concluded that distribution of Gideon Bibles at Loranger Middle School violated the Establishment Clause...

Interview With Head of Saudi Virtue Commission Published

Posted on June 03, 2008
The Arabic International Daily Asharq Alawsat yesterday published a rare interview with Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, head of Saudi Arabia's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Al-Ghaith gave this summary of the Commission's work in 2006: The presidency of the commission conducted more than 47,500 awareness and guidance programs that consisted of symposiums, panels, and guidance lectures and distributed more than 7,830,000 pamphlets and audio cassettes...

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Court Denies Preliminary Injunction To Yoko Ono In Suit Over Anti-Evolution Film

Posted on June 03, 2008
Yesterday in Yoko Ono Lennon v. Premise Media Corp., (SDNY, June 2, 2008), a New York federal district court refused to grant a preliminary injunction to Yoko Ono in her copyright infringement suit over use of a 15-second excerpt from a John Lennon song in the film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed"...

Scalia Addresses Orthodox Jewish Group On Church-State Issues

Posted on June 03, 2008
The New York Sun reports on a speech given Sunday night by Justice Antonin Scalia to the annual dinner of the Agudath Israel of America. He said that the Constitution should not be read to "banish the Almighty from the public forum." He also complained about the Supreme Court's recent rulings that government cannot favor religion over non-religion, saying that this does not, represent American tradition...

5th Circuit Rules In Favor of Odinist Prisoner

Posted on June 02, 2008
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last week reversed a district court's grant of summary judgment and remanded the free exercise and RLUIPA claims of a Texas prisoner who practices the Odinist/Asatru faith. In Mayfield v. Texas Department of Criminal Justice, (5th Cir...

Recent Articles Of Interest

Posted on June 02, 2008
From SSRN:Ran Hirschl, The Theocratic Challenge to Constitution Drafting in Post-Conflict States, (William & Mary Law Review, Vol. 49, No. 4, 2008 ).Catherine J. Ross, Children and Religious Expression in School: A Comparative Treatment of the Veil and Other Religious Symbols in Western Democracies, (May 25, 2008)...

Christian Students' Suit Against Washington School Settled

Posted on June 02, 2008
Alliance Defense Fund announced last Thursday that it had reached a settlement with Washington state's East Valley School District in a suit ADF had filed in March challenging East Valley High School's refusal to allow a group of Christian students to meet in an empty room during lunch hour...

Preachers Told Not To Proselytize In Muslim Area of British City

Posted on June 02, 2008
London's Daily Mail today reports that two Christian preachers say the West Midlands Police in the British city of Birmingham violated their freedom of expression protected by the Human Rights Act. A Muslim police community support officer ordered the preachers to stop handing out Bible extracts in a Muslim area of the city...

Court Dismisses Free Exercise Claims Against Private Actors

Posted on June 02, 2008
In Palm v. Sisters of Charity Health System, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 42287 (D ME, May 29, 2008), a Maine federal magistrate judge recommended dismissal of a claim that doctors were discriminating against believers in the "Bible Code" when they involuntarily committed plaintiff to a private hospital...

Kuwait MPs Protest Women Cabinet Members Not Wearing Headscarves

Posted on June 02, 2008
AP reported yesterday that nine Islamic members of Kuwait's newly-elected Parliament walked out in protest when two women Cabinet members being sworn in were not wearing headscarves or the long dresses that Islamists say are religiously required. The nine men returned after Modhi al-Homoud and Nouria al-Subeih took their oaths of office...

Trial Judge Orders FLDS Children Released, Subject to Restrictions

Posted on June 02, 2008
In San Angelo, Texas, Judge Barbara Walther signed an order this morning allowing mothers of around 450 FLDS children to take the children back from shelters across the state at which they were being held in state custody. Today's San Angelo Standard-Times reports that the order places substantial restrictions on the parents and children while the Department of Family and Protective Services carries out an investigation of alleged sexual abuse on the YFZ Ranch...

Danish Embassy In Pakistan Bombed, Apparently Over Muhammad Cartoons

Posted on June 02, 2008
AFP reports that today a suicide bomber blew up a car outside the Danish embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 8 and wounding 30. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, authorities say it was likely linked to caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that were originally published in Danish newspapers in 2005...

Times Public Editor Says Columnist Was Wrong On Obama As Apostate

Posted on June 01, 2008
Today's New York Times carries a piece by Public Editor Clark Hoyt criticizing a May 12 op-ed by Edward N. Luttwak titled President Apostate? The Public Editor wrote: ON May 12, The Times published an Op-Ed article by Edward N. Luttwak, a military historian, who argued that any hopes that a President Barack Obama might improve relations with the Muslim world were unrealistic because Muslims would be ?horrified? once they learned that Obama had abandoned the Islam of his father and embraced Christianity as a young adult...

Yuma Church Sues Over Zoning Denial

Posted on June 01, 2008
Last week in Yuma, Arizona, a federal lawsuit was filed challenging the denial of a conditional use permit to Centro Familiar Cristiano Buenos Nuevas Christian Church that wished to operate in the city's Old Town Historic Zoning District. Last Thursday's Yuma Sun reports that the permit was denied after opponents expressed concern about the impact the church would have on the redevelopment of the area...

US Marine Removed After Proselytizing Muslims In Fallujah

Posted on June 01, 2008
The AP reported yesterday that a Marine in Iraq was removed from duty after it was disclosed that he had passed out coins promoting Christianity to Sunni Muslims in the strongly religious city of Fallujah. One side of the coin read: "Where will you spend eternity?" The other side read: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life...

Influential Philanthropist Backing New Hebrew Language Charter School In NY

Posted on June 01, 2008
The Forward reported this week that "mega-philanthropist" Michael Steinhardt is backing a group of individuals who plan to file an application in New York City to create a Hebrew Language Academy Charter School in Brooklyn. The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life will thereby lend its substantial weight to the movement to create public charter schools that teach Hebrew-language, Jewish culture and history and and acquaint students with modern Israeli society...

Saudi Law Could Sentence Man To Death For Profanity

Posted on June 01, 2008
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that in Jidda, Saudi Arabia, a Turkish barber who cuts hair in the city has been in jail for 13 months for using a profanity that takes God's name in vain. Sabri Bogday cursed during an argument with a neighbor...

Cases In Canada, Britain Sanction Refuals To Treat Gay Couples Equally

Posted on May 31, 2008
In M.J. v. Nichols, (Sask. Hum. Rts. Trib., May 23, 2008), the Saskatchewan Human Rights Tribunal held that a government marriage commissioner must not discriminate in performing civil marriages. The Tribunal held that a Commissioner who refused to perform a ceremony for a gay couple violated Section 12 of the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code...

Muslim Workers Claim Religious Discrimination Over Uniform Policy

Posted on May 31, 2008
Earlier this week, six Somali Muslim women filed religious discrimination complaints with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights over the uniform policy of their New Brighton, Minnesota employer, Mission Foods...

French Court Annuls Muslim Marriage When Wife Is Not A Virgin As Claimed

Posted on May 31, 2008
Reuters reported yesterday that a heated debate is raging in France after a court allowed an Muslim husband to annul his marriage when he discovered that his wife was not a virgin as she had claimed to be. The husband's lawyer said that the basis for the annulment was not religious, but rather a principle in French law that treats marriage as a contract and permits an annulment "when there is an error concerning essential qualities of one of the spouses...

Obama Resigns From His Church After Guest Preacher Mocks Clinton

Posted on May 31, 2008
CNN reports today that Barack Obama has resigned from his Chicago church, Trinity United Church of Christ. While Obama previously distanced himself from remarks by the church's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, he did not resign his membership until a new embarrassment...

Preliminary Injunction Against Illinois Moment of Silence Extended Statewide

Posted on May 30, 2008
Yesterday's Chicago Tribune reports that Illinois federal district judge Robert W. Gettleman has extended his preliminary injunction barring enforcement of Illinois' moment of silence law to all school districts in the state. In November, he had issued a preliminary injunction against one school district, Buffalo Grove...

Indiana Tax Court Says Christian Campground Gets Exemption

Posted on May 30, 2008
In Cedar Lake Conference Association v. Lake County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals, (IN Tax Ct., May 28, 2008), the Indiana Tax Court concluded that a Christian campground was entitled to a property tax exemption because it was predominately used for religious purposes...

School Sued After Telling Student Not To Wear Anti-Abortion T-Shirts

Posted on May 30, 2008
Today's St. Paul Pioneer Press reports on a federal lawsuit filed earlier this week on behalf of a sixth-grader who was told not to wear T-shirts carrying anti-abortion slogans in class. Claiming a violation of the student's free speech rights, the lawsuit asserts that the student is "a sincere practicing Christian" who is "compelled by his conscience and by the tenets of his religion to spread and promote his faith and its teachings, particularly with regard to abortion...

South Carolina Passes Bill Permitting Display Including 10 Commandments and Lord's Prayer

Posted on May 30, 2008
The South Carolina legislature yesterday passed and sent to the governor for his signature H3159, that permits schools and local governments to post a Foundations of American Law and Government display described in the statute. The display includes the Ten Commandments and 12 other historical documents from the Magna Carta to Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech...

Tennessee Federal Court Says School Endorsed "Praying Parents" Group

Posted on May 30, 2008
In Doe v. Wilson County School System, (MD TN, May 29, 2008), a Tennessee federal court ruled that Lakeview Elementary School in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, violated the Establishment Clause when it allowed extensive use of school facilities to publicize activities of a group known as Praying Parents...

ACLU Sues Claiming Ohio Judge Is In Contempt For Displaying Poster

Posted on May 30, 2008
In Mansfield, Ohio, the ACLU has filed a motion in federal court to hold Richland County Common Pleas Judge James DeWeese in contempt for violating a 2002 federal court order (affirmed by the 6th Circuit) to remove a display of the Ten Commandments from his court room...

Australian Town Rejects Plans For Islamic School

Posted on May 29, 2008
In the Australian town of Camden, New South Wales (on the outskirts of Sydney), months of heated argument ended on Tuesday when Camden Council voted unanimously to reject a development application for a proposed 1200 student Islamic school. Camden Mayor Chris Patterson said the rejection was based on traffic concerns and the loss of agricultural land, not on religious grounds...

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