Religion & Law

Voter Complains About Polling Place At Church with Anti-Abortion Display

Posted on January 30, 2008
The Daytona Beach (FL) News-Journal reports that Ormond Beach (FL) resident Amy Murphy-DeMeo is complaining that her polling place in yesterday's Florida primaries was at Prince of Peace Catholic Church. The Church opposes abortion by a display of rows of white crosses symbolizing aborted fetuses, and two banners reading: "Pray for the innocent ...

Egyptian Court Decides 3 Cases On Listing Religion On ID Cards

Posted on January 30, 2008
In Egypt yesterday, Cairo's Court of Administrative Justice decided three cases involving the disclosure of religion on official Egyptian identity cards that must be carried at all times and that are needed to apply for a job, open a bank account, or register children for school...

Suit Settled; Student Gets Credit For Volunteer Hours At Church Program

Posted on January 30, 2008
Liberty Counsel announced yesterday that it had settled a lawsuit it had filed against the Long Beach (CA) Unified District School Board. The suit was filed after student Christopher Rand was denied Community Service Learning credit for volunteer work he performed because the work was performed for his church...

Progressive Muslim Group Blasts Canadian Agency's Study of Sharia Banking

Posted on January 30, 2008
Today's Toronto Star reports that a progressive Muslim group, the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC), has criticized the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) for undertaking a study of Sharia banking. In a letter yesterday, the MCC told CMHC chief executive Karen Kinsley that religion has no place in the banking or mortgage industry, and that the organization should scrap its $100,000 study...

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State Hears Religious Defense To Sexual Orientation Discrimination

Posted on January 30, 2008
An Alliance Defense Fund release reports that a hearing was scheduled for yesterday and today before the New Mexico Human Rights Division on a complaint by a lesbian couple that a photographer discriminated against them when she refused to photograph their commitment ceremony...

Colorado Senate Opens With Hinud Prayer for First Time [Corrected]

Posted on January 30, 2008
Yesterday, for the first time in its history, a Hindu clergyman delivered the opening prayer in the Colorado state Senate. The AP reports that Rajan Zed of Reno, Nev., began by saying "om" to represent the universe and then read passages in Sanskrit and English from he Rig-Veda and Bhagavad-Gita...

Archbishop of Cantebury Suggests New Law To Replace Blasphemy Ban

Posted on January 30, 2008
Yesterday in London, the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams delivered the James Callaghan Memorial Lecture, according to Times Online. In his remarks, Williams conceded that Britain's current blasphemy law "is unworkable and that its assumptions are not those of contemporary lawmakers and citizens overall...

Chaplain Objects To Policy Allowing Prisoner to Choose Multiple Faiths

Posted on January 29, 2008
The Tacoma, Washington News Tribune today carries an interesting article about a 63-year old Catholic prison chaplain who is distressed over the Washington Department of Corrections new policy that allows prisoners to practice dual faiths. The policy change came in the settlement of a RLUIPA lawsuit brought by a prisoner who insisted that he be permitted to worship as both a Native American practitioner and as a Seventh-Day Adventist...

State of the Union Calls For Extension of School Choice and Charitable Choice

Posted on January 29, 2008
Among the laundry list of proposals in President Bush's State of the Union Message (full text) last night were these:We must also do more to help children when their schools do not measure up. Thanks to the D.C. Opportunity Scholarships you approved, more than 2,600 of the poorest children in our Nation's Capital have found new hope at a faith-based or other non-public school...

Turkey's Main Parties Agree On Plan To Lift Headscarf Ban At Universities

Posted on January 29, 2008
Both Reuters and the New York Times today report that in Turkey the religiously oriented AK Party of Prime Minister Recep Erdogan has reached an agreement with opposition nationalist MHP Party on language of a constitutional amendment to permit Muslim women attending universities to wear headscarves...

Austrian State Proposes Law To Restrict Building of Mosques

Posted on January 29, 2008
In the Austrian state of Carinthia, the government led by right-wing politician Jörg Haider has introduced a bill that would make it difficult to construct mosques or minarets. Spiegel Online reported yesterday that the proposed law would allow a special commission to block construction of any building that is "unusual" or which stands out because of its unusual architecture or height, if the building does not blend in with the neighborhood's existing architecture...

Good News Club Sues Virginia School Board Over Fees

Posted on January 29, 2008
In a release yesterday, Liberty Counsel announced that it had filed suit against the Williamsburg -James City County (Virginia) Public Schools challenging its policy of charging facility usage fees to the Good News Club. The club is a Christian after-school program operated by Child Evangelism Fellowship of Virginia...

UN Official Finds Religious Liberty Issues In Israel and Palestinain Authority

Posted on January 29, 2008
Reuters reports that Asma Jahangir, the United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, concluded a week-long visit on Sunday to Israel and the Palestinian Authority. In a statement at the end of her visit, she criticized both Israel and the PA (consistently referred to by Jahangir as "the occupied Palestinian territory") for restrictions on religious freedom...

NPR Interview With Author of Book on Religon In White House

Posted on January 29, 2008
NPR has made available online a 34 minute segment from yesterday's Fresh Air consisting of an interview with Randall Balmer, author of the recently released book God in the White House. Balmer is also author of the Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism and editor-at-large of Christianity Today.

Presidential Candidates Preach At Churches Despite IRS Guidelines

Posted on January 28, 2008
Appearances by some of the presidential candidates yesterday, in advance of Florida's primary tomorrow and Super Tuesday's 24 primaries and caucuses, raise questions about the interpretation of IRS guidelines for Section 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations, such as churches...

Commentary: Oregon Circumcision Decision Avoids Issue of Child's Independent Free Exercise Rights

Posted on January 28, 2008
An important issue remained undecided after the Oregon Supreme Court on Friday sent back to the trial court for further findings the dispute between divorced parents over whether their 12-year old son could receive a religious circumcision. As previously reported, in Boldt v...

Ohio Supreme Court Case Questions Family's Right To Body Parts of Deceased

Posted on January 28, 2008
Today's Washington Post reports on some of the religious concerns raised in Albrecht v. Treon, a case argued earlier this month before the Ohio Supreme Court. (Video of Jan. 23 argument.) A Jan. 20 Toledo Blade article has additional details on the case...

Mormon Church President Dies; Officials Send Condolences

Posted on January 28, 2008
The New York Times reports that Gordon B. Hinckley, long-time leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, died Sunday in Salt Lake City, Utah. The 97-year old Mormon leader served as president of the LDS Church for almost 13 years. Among his innovations were changes in the Church logo to make the words "Jesus Christ" larger than "Latter Day Saints", and making the Church's extensive genealogical records publicly available online...

Texas Lawsuit Challenges Water Quality Law Under RLUIPA

Posted on January 28, 2008
Today's Austin (TX) American-Statesman reports on an interesting suit filed last month in federal district court in Austin. Hope in the City, an Austin, Texas Christian church, is challenging the city's use of a law enacted to protect water quality in the Barton Springs watershed to prevent the church from paving over additional parts of its property for use as a parking lot...

Recent Articles on Law and Religion

Posted on January 28, 2008
From SSRN:Emon, Anver M., The Limits of Constitutionalism in the Muslim World: History and Identity in Islamic Law , ( in Constitutional Design for Divided Societies, Forthcoming). From SmartCILP:Martin H. Belsky, The Religion Clauses and the "Really New" Federalism, [abstract], 42 Tulsa Law Review 537-551 (2007)...

Muslim Woman In Bangladesh Planning Conversion Burned By Unknown Attackers

Posted on January 28, 2008
Bos News Life reported yesterday that in Bangladesh, a 70-year old woman is in critical condition with burns over 70% of her body after unknown Muslim extremists set fire to her house to prevent her from being baptized in February as a Christian. On January 7, attackers set Rahima Beoa's bamboo and wood home afire...

Standards For Use of Religion By Political Candidates Proposed

Posted on January 27, 2008
Today's Newsday carries an editorial titled "God on the American Campaign Trail". It calls attention to a statement issued earlier this month (Jan. 15) by Faith in Public Life and a group of Catholic, Evangelical, and mainline Protestant leaders concerned about misuse of religion in this year's presidential primaries...

USCIRF Calls For Release of Afghan Student Sentenced for Blasphemy

Posted on January 27, 2008
On Friday, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging the U.S. to press Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai to release Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh. Kambakhsh is a 23 year old student and journalist who has been sentenced to death in Afghanistan for circulating material insulting to Islam...

Some Are Critical of Proposed Turkish Constitutonal Changes

Posted on January 27, 2008
Saturday's Turkish Daily News reports on its interviews with academics and jurists opposed to the government's proposal to amend Turkey's constitution to reverse the country's ban on wearing of head scarves at universities. (See prior posting.) The government plans to add language guaranteeing freedom of dress so long as it does not violate general morals, as well as a clause guaranteeing equality in the provision and utilization of public services...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on January 27, 2008
In Henderson v. Virginia, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5230 (WD VA, Jan. 23, 2008), a Virginia federal district court rejected an inmate's claim that his free exercise rights were violated when, in a disciplinary action, he was temporarily removed from the Common Fare diet and placed on a diet loaf...

New Restrictions Reported On Tibetan Buddhist Monastaries

Posted on January 27, 2008
Radio Free Asia reported Friday that Chinese officials are imposing new restrictions on Buddhists in the Tibet Autonomous Region, at the same time they have recruited 140 Tibetan young people to perform traditional dances at the upcoming Beijing Olympics...

9th Circuit Holds For Muslim Prisoner In Dietary Accommodation Case

Posted on January 26, 2008
In an unusually long opinion for a case of this type, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Shakur v. Schriro, (9th Cir., Jan. 23, 2008), reversed the trial court and sent back for further factual development a Muslim prisoner's claim for dietary accommodations...

Oregon High Court Rules In Custody Case Involving Religious Circumcision Dispute

Posted on January 26, 2008
Yesterday the Oregon Supreme Court decided a widely followed change-of-custody case which raises issues of parental rights and Jewish religious circumcision. In Boldt v. Boldt, (OR Sup. Ct., Jan. 25, 2008), the court was faced with an appeal by a now-divorced mother who is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church, seeking to prevent her former husband-- a convert to Judaism-- from having their 12-year old son circumcised...

9th Circuit Hears Arguments In Arizona Scholarship Tax Credit Challenge

Posted on January 25, 2008
Yesterday, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Winn v. Garriott, an Establishment Clause challenge to Arizona's scholarship tax credit program. The district court upheld the program which funds parents sending their children to a variety of private schools, over 70% of which are religious...

Florida School Board Changes Policy To End Higher Fees For Religious Club

Posted on January 25, 2008
A press release issued yesterday by Liberty Counsel reports that the Orange County, Florida School Board has agreed to change its policy that charged facility usage fees to the Good New Clubs, but permitted groups such as the Boy Scouts to use school facilities without charge...

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