Religion & Law

Turkish Court Says Another Legal Change Is Needed To End Headscarf Ban

Posted on March 12, 2008
The Danistay, Turkey's top administrative court, ruled Tuesday that YOK, the body that supervises Turkish higher education, moved too quickly in implementing recently adopted Constitutional amendments allowing women students to wear Muslim headscarves at universities...

New Guide To Tax Rules On Political Activity By Non-Profits Issued

Posted on March 12, 2008
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has recently released Politics and the Pulpit 2008: A Guide to the Internal Revenue Code Restrictions on the Political Activity of Religious Organizations. The 23-page report in Question and Answer format is a plain English guide to rules governing political activity by non-profit organizations, including churches and religious organizations...

Audit Shows 2007 Claims and Payouts By Catholic Church In Abuse Cases

Posted on March 11, 2008
The AP reports that last Friday, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released the 2007 Annual Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (full text of Annual Report). Summarizing some of the findings, the AP says that "in 2007, the number of sex abuse claims against Roman Catholic clergy dropped for the third consecutive year, but total payouts to victims nearly doubled to reach their highest level ever...

WA Passes Bill On Prison Chaplains and Moral Guidance for Prisoners

Posted on March 11, 2008
In Washington state, a unanimous vote by the state Senate gave final passage to Senate Bill 6400. As described in a release by its sponsor, the bill directs "the state Department of Corrections to study in-prison programs to help offenders build their moral character...

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Imposition of Proposed Land Use Ordinance Held To Be Covered By RLUIPA

Posted on March 11, 2008
On Friday, a Tennessee federal district court handed down a 44-page decision in Layman Lessons, Inc. v. City of Millersville, Tennessee, (MD TN, March 7, 2008). The facts are described in an ACLJ press release: "Problems arose for Layman Lessons, a Christian ministry formed to aid the homeless and destitute, when it first applied for a use permit for a commercially zoned property in Millersville, a town 17 miles north of Nashville...

No Free Exercise Violation In Police Refusal To Believe AA Members

Posted on March 11, 2008
Williams v. Savage, (D DC, March 10, 2008), is a case described by the D.C. federal district court as an attempt "to make a federal case out of an ordinary car accident ." A police officer investigating an accident refused to listen to plaintiffs' version of events after learning that they were members of Alcoholics Anonymous...

Court Allows Members To Examine Records of Sikh Temple

Posted on March 11, 2008
Yesterday's Modesto Bee reports that some 50 members of a Livingston, California Sikh Temple have won the right to inspect the Temple's records. Merced County Superior Court Judge Ronald Hansen on Friday denied plaintiffs access to Temple membership lists...

California College Rehires Pacifist Teacher

Posted on March 11, 2008
California State University East Bay has reinstated math teacher Marianne Kearney-Brown who was fired last month after she refused to sign a required loyalty oath without modifying it to reflect her pacifist Quaker views. (See prior posting.) Last Saturday's Los Angeles Times reported that the matter was resolved after state Attorney General...

Paper Says Obama's Church Indirectly Endorsed Him In Sermons

Posted on March 11, 2008
A front-page article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal suggests that ministers at Barack Obama's Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago have indirectly endorsed Obama's candidacy in violation of IRS rules for non-profit organizations. The paper says: "A review by The Wall Street Journal of 13 sermons at Trinity seen live or through church-recorded DVDs since late December found nine instances of ministers at Trinity appearing to promote Sen...

Santeria Priest Loses Bid To Sacrifice Animals In City

Posted on March 11, 2008
After a one-day trial yesterday, a Texas federal district judge ruled against a Santeria priest who wanted to sacrifice animals at his home in Euless, Texas. Jose Merced sued after the city refused him a permit to sacrifice animals, saying that the refusal infringes his religious freedom...

Cert. To Be Filed In 6th Circuit RLUIPA Case

Posted on March 10, 2008
The Lansing State Journal reports that a petition for certiorari will be filed today in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the 6th Circuit's December decision in Living Water Church of God v. Charter Township of Meridian (see prior posting.) In the case, the 6th Circuit for the first time defined "substantial burden" under RLUIPA in a case challenging a Michigan township's denial of a special use permit to a church that wanted to construct a larger building and school on property it owned.

Survey Finds Most Michigan Localities Open With Christian Prayer

Posted on March 10, 2008
The Grand Rapids (MI) Press has surveyed the practices regarding invocations by local governments in Michigan. An article yesterday says that about 75% open meetings with a prayer, and most of the prayers are overtly Christian. However local procedures vary...

New Articles and Books of Interest

Posted on March 10, 2008
From SSRN:John M. Finnis, Endorsing Discrimination Between Faiths: A Case of Extreme Speech?, (Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 09/2008, March 2008).Chad Flanders, The Possibility of a Secular First Amendment, (Quinnipiac Law Review, Vol. 26, 2008)...

Sikhs Like New Vermont Prison Guidelines

Posted on March 10, 2008
The current issue of India New England discusses the satisfaction of the Sikh community with the new religious guidelines issued by the Vermont Department of Corrections. Directive 380.01, which became effective February 4, contains a lengthy section on religious head coverings, explicitly mentioning the turban along with a number of others...

Oregon Coffee House Settles Church-State Dispute With Post Office

Posted on March 09, 2008
In Clackamas County, Oregon, a cafe, the Unlimited Coffee Co., has found itself in the middle of a church-state dispute with the United States Post Office. Saturday's Oregonian reports that the cafe-- whose premises are used by Road 2 Damascus Church for services on Sunday when the cafe is closed-- also houses a contract postal unit...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on March 09, 2008
In Pratt v. Correction Corporation of America, (8th Cir., March 3,2008), the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's dismissal of a complaint by an inmate seeking meals that contain Halal meat. The court held that claims for injunctive and declaratory relief are now moot, and that plaintiff failed to show that prison officials placed a "substantial bureden" on his ability to practice his religion...

Afghan Protests Continue Over European Assaults On Symbols of Islam

Posted on March 09, 2008
In Afghanistan on Saturday and Sunday, peaceful demonstrations were staged to protest the reprinting in Denmark last month of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban. (See prior posting.) They were also protesting the planned release of a video critical of the Koran by right-wing Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders...

Is St. Patrick's Day A Secular Holiday?

Posted on March 09, 2008
Is St. Patrick's Day a secular celebration of Irish heritage, or is it a religious holiday? This year that question is raised because-- for the first time since 1940-- St. Patrick's Day (March 17) falls during Holy Week, the seven days before Easter. An AP story on Friday reported that Catholic liturgical rules preclude a Mass in honor of St...

Mississippi Court Dismisses Suit Against Diocese By Church That Was Not Rebuilt

Posted on March 08, 2008
According to WLOX TV on Friday, a Pass Christian, Mississippi, a state trial judge has dismissed a suit brought by members of St. Paul's Catholic Church against the Diocese of Biloxi. The suit challenged the consolidation of St. Paul's into another parish and sought an accounting of the funds that were contributed to St...

Texas Suit Challenging Graduation Prayer Vote Is Settled

Posted on March 08, 2008
Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced Friday that a settlement has been reached in a federal lawsuit against the Round Rock, Texas Independent School District. The suit challenged the school's practice of allowing a yearly vote by seniors on whether there should be prayer at their graduations...

Canadian Archbishop Says Deny Communion To Pro-Choice Politicians

Posted on March 08, 2008
In Canada, Ottawa's Catholic Archbishop Terrence Prendergast says that any Catholic politician who supports access to abortion, and who cannot be persuaded to change his or her position, should not publicly receive communion. Saturday's Ottawa Citizen reports that Prendergast set out his position in response to an audience member at a question and answer session...

Indian River (DE) School District Faces New Charges-- Now By Muslim Family

Posted on March 08, 2008
The Indian River, Delaware School District which has just settled a long-running lawsuit brought by two Jewish families over religion in the schools (see prior posting) is now facing charges that a teacher made anti-Muslim statements in class. Saturday's Salsbury (MD) Daily Times reports that a Muslim family has accused a fifth-grade Lord Baltimore Elementary School teacher of telling her class that Barack Obama is a Muslim, that he does not swear on the Bible or recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and that he "believes in different things and is scary"...

Naval Academy's Dipping of Flag In Religious Services Questioned

Posted on March 08, 2008
Saturday's New York Times reports on a new religious controversy at the U.S. Naval Academy. For 40 years at the Academy's widely-attended 11 a.m. Protestant service, the color guard has dipped the U.S. and the Academy flags before the altar cross. One congregant describes the practice as showing "that our country is one nation under God and the nation-state is not the highest authority in the world...

Suit Challenges Room Use Rules In Ohio Library

Posted on March 08, 2008
On Friday, the Alliance Defense Fund announced that it had filed a federal lawsuit against the trustees of the Upper Arlington (Ohio) Library challenging the Library's refusal to permit its meeting rooms to be used for a program sponsored by a non-profit group, Citizens For Community Values, Inc...

Appropriation to Religious College Held To Violate Kentucky's Blaine Amendment

Posted on March 07, 2008
A Franklin, Kentucky Circuit Court judge yesterday ruled that the state legislature acted unconstitutionally when it appropriated $10 million for a pharmacy school building at University of the Cumberlands, a private Southern Baptist university. Judge Roger Crittenden ruled that the appropriation violated a Blaine Amendment provision in the state's constitution...

Secret Service Tells Sikhs No Kirpans In Meeting With Pope

Posted on March 07, 2008
Representatives of the World Sikh Council will not join a group of interfaith leaders who will meet with Pope Benedict XVI during his U.S. visit in April. Yesterday's Contra Costa (CA) Times reports that the U.S. Secret Service demands that Sikhs remove their kirpans (ceremonial daggers) before the meeting...

Arkansas Supreme Court Upholds Judicial Supervision of Buddhist Temple Election

Posted on March 07, 2008
Yesterday in Viravonga v. Wat Buddha Samakitham, (AK Sup. Ct., March 6, 2008), the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld a Circuit Court's order growing out of its supervision of a disputed election for the Board of Directors of a Buddhist Temple. Among other things, the Circuit Court determined a list of eligible voters and concluded that the Buddhist temple was non-denominational and not affiliated with the Dhammayut denomination...

Canadian Court Rejects Cycle Helmet Exemption For Turban-Wearing Sikhs

Posted on March 07, 2008
In a widely publicized Canadian case, an Ontario court judge yesterday refused to grant a Sikh man a religious exemption from the requirement that motorcyclists wear helmets. Baljinder Badesha's religious beliefs prevent him from wearing anything over his turban...

Florida Supreme Court Hears Arguments In Jews For Jesus False Lights Case

Posted on March 07, 2008
Yesterday the Florida Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Jews for Jesus, Inc. v. Rapp. A state appellate court had certified to the Supreme Court the question of whether Florida recognizes a claim for false light invasion of privacy, and, if it does, whether it would follow the Restatement (Second) of Torts in defining the elements of the claim...

Group Asks IRS To Probe Endorsement of Texas Congressional Candidate

Posted on March 07, 2008
Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced yesterday that it has asked the IRS to look into an endorsement of Texas Congressional candidate Shelley Sekula-Gibbs by Steve Riggle, pastor of Grace Community Church, a Houston mega-church...

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