Religion & Law

Appeal Filed In Texas Moment of Silence Case

Posted on January 25, 2008
Today's Dallas Morning News reports that an appeal to the 5th Circuit has been filed in Croft v. Perry, the Texas "moment of silence" case. In the case, the lower court rejected an Establishment Clause challenge to Texas' mandate that public schools give students a moment of silence each day during which they may reflect, pray or meditate...

5th Circuit Reinstates Muslim Doctor's Retaliation Claim Against VA

Posted on January 25, 2008
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals this week reversed a Mississippi federal district court and held that a Muslim physician had raised genuine issues of fact in his retaliation claim against the Biloxi Veterans Affairs Medical Center. In Rikabi v. Nicholson, (5th Cir...

Right Wing Dutch Politician Plans Anti-Quran Film; Government Is Concerned

Posted on January 25, 2008
In the Netherlands, right-wing Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders has provoked controversy by announcing that he is producing a 10-minute film about the Quran that will portray the Muslim scriptures as a "fascist book" that incites violence and that promotes intolerance of women and homosexuals...

Religious Discrimination Claim Rejected In Firing of Community Services Director

Posted on January 25, 2008
In Evans v. State of Washington, (WA Ct. App., Jan 23, 2008), a Washington state Court of Appeals rejected employment discrimination and retaliation claims brought by a regional Community Services Division director who claimed her dismissal from her position by the state violated Washington's law prohibiting religious discrimination in employment...

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9th Circuit Defines "Religious Exercise" In RLUIPA

Posted on January 24, 2008
On Tuesday, in Greene v. Solano County Jail, (9th Cir., Jan. 22, 2008), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided an important interpretive question under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. In the case, a former maximum security prisoner challenged a California jail's policy of prohibiting maximum security prisoners from participating in group religious worship...

"Peer Reviewed" Creationism Journal Launched

Posted on January 24, 2008
Nature News yesterday reported that Answers in Genesis, the group that last year opened a Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, has now launched a new online scholarly journal, Answers Research Journal. The journal's website describes it as "a professional, peer-reviewed technical journal for the publication of interdisciplinary scientific and other relevant research from the perspective of the recent Creation and the global Flood within a biblical framework...

Parents Say Vermont Teacher Pushes Christianity In Classroom

Posted on January 24, 2008
The ACLU of Vermont has complained to school officials about Irasburg (VT) seventh grade teacher Wally Rogers who they say has gone too far in promoting his personal religious beliefs in his public school class. A report today from the Vermont Press Bureau says that Rogers gave a student a flier titled titled "Why Jesus Is Better Than Santa Claus...

Korean Buddhists Complain About Polling Places In Churches

Posted on January 24, 2008
In South Korea, Buddhists and other groups are complaining that a disproportionately large number of voting stations have been located in Protestant churches. Today's Korea Times says that in last December's presidential elections, 1160 of the 13,178 polling places were in religious institutions...

Denver Archbishop Criticizes Bill That Would Limit Religious Hiring Preferences

Posted on January 24, 2008
Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is criticizing a bill pending in the Colorado legislature that would prohibit religious organizations from using religious criteria in hiring of any person whose position is paid for by government grant funds. The Catholic News Agency reported yesterday that House Bill 1080 could prevent Catholic non-profit organizations from preferring Catholics for key leadership positions...

Afghan Student Sentenced To Death For Distributing Article On Quranic Verses

Posted on January 24, 2008
The Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday reported that a journalism student at Afghanistan?s Balkh University was sentenced to death on Tuesday for distributing material found by a religious court to be insulting to Islam. The student, Sayad Parwez Kambaksh, apparently distributed an article he found on the Internet that commented on verses in the Quran about women...

Dutch Government Will Ban Burqa In Schools and Government Offices

Posted on January 24, 2008
Reuters and Jurist both reported yesterday that the Dutch government will shortly impose a ban on Muslim women wearing the burqa in schools and government offices. The Cabinet reportedly has rejected on freedom of religion grounds a broader proposal by right-wing politician Geert Wilders that would have totally banned burqas from being worn in public.

Israel's Knesset Approves Religious Affairs Ministry Proposal

Posted on January 23, 2008
Last week, according to YNet News (1/14) , Israel's Knesset voted 51-37 to approve the government's proposal to re-establish the Ministry of Religious Affairs (see prior posting) and to expand the powers given to Yitzhak Cohen, the Minister heading it...

Citizens Protest School Board's Refusal To Permit Gideon Bible Distribution

Posted on January 23, 2008
Yesterday's Hope, Arkansas Star reports on the Hope Public Schools Board of Trustees meeting held last Monday at which 25 people appeared to protest the Board's decision that it would not permit the Gideons to continue their practice of handing out Bibles to fifth graders in the public schools...

Interview With Mikey Weinstein, Founder of Military Relgious Freedom Foundation

Posted on January 23, 2008
February's Philadelphia Jewish Voice has published an interview with Michael Weinstein Founder and President of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Weinstein has been fighting religious proselytizing in the military. He says, in part: I tell people also this is not a Christian-Jewish issue, it is a fundamentalist Christian versus the Constitution issue...

Vietnam's Catholic Church Wants Property Returned

Posted on January 23, 2008
An AP report today says that the Catholic Church in Vietnam is pressuring the government to return to it the old Vatican embassy in Hanoi that was taken by the government in 1960. This is one of many church properties that were taken over by the government after 1954...

Supreme Court Rejects Prisoner's Tort Claim For Lost Religious Items

Posted on January 23, 2008
Yesterday in a 5-4 decision in Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, (US Sup. Ct., Jan. 22, 2008), the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a tort claim by a federal prisoner seeking to recover the value of property that was lost when his belongings were moved from one prison to another...

Court Says Religious Conflict With Grand Jury Appearance Justifies Dismissal

Posted on January 23, 2008
In People v. Shemesh, (NY App. Div., Jan. 15, 2008), a New York appellate court in a 3-2 decision affirmed a lower court's dismissal of a grand jury indictment on free exercise grounds. Defendant asserted his right to appear before the grand jury that was considering handing down a perjury indictment against him...

Malaysian Authorities Confiscate Christian Children's Books Over Illustrations

Posted on January 23, 2008
Australia's Christian Today reports that Malaysian authorities have recently confiscated Christian children's books claiming that graphic depictions in them of the Biblical figures Abraham and Moses violate Islamic law. General-secretary of the Malaysian Council of Churches, Reverend Hermen Shastri, called on the Interior Ministry to amend its regulations to prevent enforcement officials from acting on their personal whims.

Nevada Dems Schedule Convention For Eve of Passover

Posted on January 22, 2008
As previously reported, Nevada effectively disenfranchised observant Jews and Seventh Day Adventists last week by holding its caucuses to select delegates to the Republican and Democratic national conventions on Saturday. Now, it turns out, that the Nevada Democratic State Convention-- an all-day event-- will be held Saturday, April 19, in Reno...

Suit Challenges Limits On Pastor's Speech Near Gay Pride Event

Posted on January 22, 2008
The Alliance Defense fund announced that it filed a federal lawsuit in Wichita, Kansas last Thursday on behalf of a pastor who was prevented from preaching and distributing literature on a public sidewalk near a Gay Pride event held last June in Wichita's Heritage Square Park...

India's Supreme Court Allows Religious Pilgrimage Subsidies To Continue This Year

Posted on January 22, 2008
The Hindu reports that on Monday India's Supreme Court extended its order (see prior posting) allowing the government to pay out subsidies for Haj pilgrims and also for Mansarovar pilgrims. A constitutional challenge to the payment of subsidies under India's Haj Act is pending in the Allahabad High Court, which had temporarily enjoined the payment...

Suit Challenges Massachusetts Law Creating Abortion Clinic Buffer Zones

Posted on January 22, 2008
Suit was filed in federal district court in Boston on Friday challenging Massachusetts' recently-enacted law (SB 1353) creating a 35-foot buffer zone around abortion clinics. In McCullen v. Coakley (full text of complaint), a group of pro-life advocates who wish to talk with, and distribute literature to, women entering a Boston area Planned Parenthood clinic ask that the new law be declared unconstitutional on its face and as applied...

Saudi Arabia Now Allows Unaccompanied Women In Hotels

Posted on January 22, 2008
Saudi Arabia has moved away from strict Islamic law and has begun permitting women to stay at the country's hotels, unaccompanied by a male relative or guardian. Both BBC News and the AP reported yesterday on the royal decree that permits the Ministry of Trade to promulgate new regulations that merely require unaccompanied women to present photo ID to a hotel manager...

The Role of Religion In Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

Posted on January 21, 2008
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The place of religion in the federal holiday honoring the slain civil rights leader who was co-pastor at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and who used religious rhetoric in many of his calls for racial equality in the United States, has always been unclear...

Pittsburgh Presbyterian Church Gets Injunction; Holds Disaffiliation Vote

Posted on January 21, 2008
Today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that last Wednesday, Pittsburgh's Memorial Park Presbyterian Church obtained a temporary injunction from a Pennsylvania trial judge, barring the Pittsburgh Presbytery from interfering with a planned meeting of church members...

Britsh Gay Rights Group Protests Evangelical As Equalities Commissioner

Posted on January 21, 2008
Today's London Guardian reports that a gay rights group in Britain is criticizing the appointment of Joel Edwards, leader of the Evangelical Alliance and in the black community, as a commissioner to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement criticizes Edwards' attempts to obtain exemptions for Christian groups from non-discrimination requirements that mandate equality in the provision of goods and services to gays and lesbians...

2008 Anti-Roe v. Wade Activities Have Secular Theme

Posted on January 21, 2008
Tomorrow is the 35th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade. While opposition to Roe has largely been religiously-based, religion has been surprisingly absent from two national anti-abortion initiatives. First, President Bush last week declared yesterday, January 20, as National Sanctity of Human Life Day...

Recent Scholarly Articles of Interest

Posted on January 21, 2008
From SSRN:John M. Kang, Deliberating the Divine: On Extending the Justification from Truth to Religious Expression, (Brooklyn Law Review ,Vol. 73, No. 1, 2007).David A. Skeel, The Paths of Christian Legal Scholarship, (U of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No...

Egyptian State Council Gets Advice From Islamic Scholars On Copts Reconverting

Posted on January 21, 2008
Courts in Egypt have increasingly faced requests for new identification documents from Coptic Christians who have initially converted to Islam and then have reconverted to Christianity. Counselor Moataz Kamel Morsi, Deputy Chairman of the State Council, asked Egypt's top religious body, the fatwa committee at Al Azhar, for guidance...

Pastor Briefings Being Held In Advance of Presidential Primaries

Posted on January 20, 2008
Yesterday's Dallas Morning News reports that key figures in the Texas Restoration Project that held a series of closed-door pastor briefings in the 2006 elections are taking their presentations on the road to this year's presidential primary and caucus states such as Florida, Iowa and South Carolina...

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