Canada Reports That Religion-Motivated Hate Crimes Decreased 18% In 2025

 Last week, the Canadian government released data on Police Reported Crime Statistics in Canada for 2025, including data on hate crimes. The report says in part:

The number of police-reported hate crimes decreased 3%, from 4,841 incidents in 2024 to 4,708 incidents in 2025. Prior to 2025, the number of hate crimes had more than doubled (+166%) from 2018 to 2024. Expressed as a rate, police-reported hate crimes declined 4% in 2025 to 11 incidents per 100,000 yet were more than twice as high as in 2018 (5 incidents).

The decline in the number of incidents in 2025 was in large part the result of fewer hate crimes targeting religion (-18% to 1,115 incidents) and those targeting sexual orientation (-19% to 534 incidents)....

More detailed data on  religion-motivate hate crimes shows that anti-Jewish hate crimes decreased 16% from 2025; anti-Muslim hate crimes decreased 11%; and anti-Catholic hate crimes decreased 39% from the prior year.

A report by JNS analyzes the Canadian data with a focus on anti-Jewish hate crimes. It points out that 70.7% of the 2025 hate crimes targeting a religious group and 16.7% of all 2025 hate crimes were aimed at Jews who constitute 1% of Canada's total population.

Justice Department Updates Guidance to Federal Agencies on Protecting Religious Liberty

Yesterday, the Attorney General issued a 26-page Memorandum to Executive Departments and Agencies (full text) on Federal Law Protections for Religious Liberty. The Memorandum updates and expands one issued in 2017 (see prior posting). According to a Justice Department press release:

Key updates in the guidance include:

Integration of recent Supreme Court precedent. The memo reflects recent judicial decisions clarifying the scope of the First Amendment, RFRA’s broad protection of religious liberty, and the requirement of equal treatment toward religious organizations in government programs. 

Protection of parental rights. The updated guidance emphasizes the Supreme Court’s recent precedents confirming that the Constitution protects parents’ ability to direct the religious upbringing of their children. 

Reaffirmation of church autonomy.  The guidance highlights constitutional protections that bar government interference in internal religious governance, including employment. 

Expanded direction for federal agencies. Agencies are instructed to proactively consider religious‑liberty impacts when developing rules and policies, designate officers to review regulatory proposals for compliance, and ensure enforcement actions respect RFRA and other protections.  Agencies must also consider religious‑liberty concerns raised by the public during notice‑and‑comment periods. 

Clarified protections in federal employment. The guidance reaffirms that agencies must follow recent Office of Legal Counsel opinions when accommodating religious expression and practice in the workplace, including scheduling accommodations and workplace religious expression. 

Safeguards for religious organizations in federal contracting and grant programs. Agencies may not condition an individual’s participation in federal programs on relinquishing their religious character or hiring rights.  Religious organizations must be permitted to compete on equal footing with secular organizations....

9th Circuit: School Social Worker's Office Display Was Government Speech Subject to School Regulation

In Theis v. Intermountain Education Service District Board of Directors, (9th Cir., July 21, 2026), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a 2-1 decision upheld an Oregon federal district court's determination that a school district could bar a school social worker from displaying, when students are in his office, books that the school found to be hostile toward transgender individuals. The majority held that plaintiff's display was not protected by the First Amendment because it is government speech. The court said in part:

First, Theis’s speech occurred within the scope of his professional role.  It was confined to the environments—his offices—in which he was assigned to perform his duties and to times when he was with students.  And Theis does not dispute that his speech was aimed at students.  This case is therefore distinguishable from those in which a school employee engages in the challenged speech off school grounds or while performing tasks unrelated to the school’s ordinary operations, and from cases in which the employee does not direct his speech to students.... 

Second, and most importantly, Theis’s speech “owes its existence to his position” in the IMESD schools.... Theis displayed the books in his offices where he interacted with students as part of his assigned duties, and the displays were visible to those students during evaluations and meetings... 

This case is different [from the Supreme Court case of Kennedy v. Bremerton].  Theis’s display of books occurred in the course of performing his assigned duties and in a setting where he was responsible for interacting directly with his students.  Unlike Coach Kennedy, who was off the clock, Theis was not engaged in a moment of private expression detached from his role.  To the contrary, he was engaged in his core professional responsibilities.... 

Judge VanDyke filed a dissenting opinion, saying in part:

... [E]exactly no one believes the majority’s legal fiction—that anything seen by students on school grounds is necessarily government speech or perceived as such.  When a student sees personal materials hanging in a teacher’s office, they naturally identify that ornamentation as reflecting the teacher’s own personal views....  A free and open American society appropriately recoils at the prospect of public-school teachers becoming involuntarily conscripted apparatchiks of any administration’s particular orthodoxy....

The fact that Theis’s speech was private expression does not render it immune from government regulation.  When a government employee speaks in his personal capacity, he can only invoke the protections of the First Amendment if he can show that he spoke “on a matter of public concern.”...  If this burden is met, courts engage in “a delicate balancing of the competing interests ... [to determine] whether an employee’s speech interests are outweighed by “the interest of the State, as an employer, in promoting the efficiency of the public services it performs through its employees.” 

 ... [I]n this case, nothing could support the conclusion that the government’s interest in efficiently operating its public schools outweighed Theis’s speech interest.... [A]fter three years of Theis’s use of the books in decorating his office, the record contains no evidence whatsoever of “actual, material, and substantial disruption” in the school.... The only negative reaction to the books... all originated from a single, adult teacher who saw “the books in [Theis’s] office, researched them online, and then determined they were offensive.”...

[Thanks to Thomas Rutledge for the lead.]

9th Circuit: Trial Court Must Evaluate Penological Interest In Refusing to Replace Inmate's Arabic-Language Quran

In Kane v. Haynes, (9th Cir., July 23, 2026), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded a district court's dismissal of a free exercise claim brought by a Muslim inmate against prison officials. The court said in part:

While transferring then-inmate Ali Kane between units at the Airway Heights Correctional Center, Department of Corrections (DOC) officers disposed of an unmarked Arabic-language copy of the Quran.  After Kane initiated DOC’s grievance process, DOC offered Kane a replacement copy in English. Kane refused, stating that his religious practice requires him to memorize and utter his prayers in Arabic. 

Kane sued the correctional officers in their official capacity under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming the officers’ destruction of Kane’s copy of the Quran and refusal to provide a substitute Arabic-language copy violated his First Amendment right to free exercise....

... Kane ... offered that his inability to memorize the Arabic passages has severe religious consequences (e.g., sin cannot be forgiven as required by Islam), and Kane, having since forgotten the verses, cannot meet his daily religious obligations.   

The district court, however, did not ... evaluate whether the government has shown a legitimate penological interest justifying its actions under [Turner v. Safley]...  We thus remand so that the district court may consider the Turner factors....

9th Circuit: Inmate Loses Challenge to Kosher Food Program

 In Hertel v. Thornell, (9th Cir., July 22, 2026), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of an Arizona prison inmate's challenges to the kosher diet he was receiving. The court said in part:

The district court correctly held that Hertel’s Establishment Clause claim based on the denial of meat is moot, as kosher meat is now provided.... With respect to the alleged RLUIPA violations—denial of daily fruit, uncut vegetables, kosher cheese and eggs, and the processing of food by non-Jews— ... there are compelling government interests in prison order and security, and Defendants further showed beyond dispute that they used the least restrictive means to uphold these interests.... The remaining First Amendment claims fail for the same reasons because the prison’s policies were “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” ...

The court also rejected Plaintiff's Equal Protection and 8th Amendment claims, saying in part; 

... Hertel failed to provide any evidence of differential treatment between inmates on the Common Fare-Kosher Meat diet and inmates on the Common Fare-Vegan diet....

The diet’s alleged failure to follow USDA guidelines does not establish a constitutional violation.

Father's Suit Seeking Opt-Out for Son of Some Class Lessons Moves Ahead

In Alan L. v. Lexington Public Schools, (D MA, July 21, 2026), the father of a kindergartener sued seeking to opt his child out of classroom lessons and activities that deal with sexual orientation and gender identity and violate plaintiff's Christian religious beliefs. Last year, the court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the school to provide an opt out. (See prior posting). Nevertheless, defendants now moved for a dismissal of all plaintiff's claims. Recognizing that the suit is controlled by the Supreme Court's decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the court in its opinion issued this week refused to dismiss plaintiff's free exercise claims and most of plaintiff's other contentions, including their claim of qualified immunity. The court however dismissed plaintiff's substantive due process claim because Mahmoud had based its holding on the Free Exercise clause, while a prior 1st Circuit case had held that the due process clause does not create a parental right to opt one's children out of particular lessons.

9th Circuit: Plan to Convince Vaccination Objectors to Reconsider Did Not Show Hostility To Religion

 In Seagraves v. Wahington State Department of Children, Youth and Families, (9th Cir., July 21, 2026), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of claims by 18 former employees of the Department of Children, Youth and Families who were separated from the agency after their requests for religious exemptions from the state's 2021 Covid vaccine mandate were rejected. The court said in part:

The [complaint] does not plausibly allege personal involvement by any of the Officials [named as defendants] in constitutional violations of the Employees’ free exercise, equal protection, or procedural due process rights.  All the Employees’ requests for accommodations in their current roles were denied, based on determinations that they could not perform the essential functions of their positions unvaccinated without endangering the health and safety of others in the workplace, including children and families.  Accordingly, their supposed constitutional injuries flow from this determination.  Yet the [complaint] does not allege that any of the Officials [named as defendants] personally participated in evaluating the Employees’ accommodation requests or that they played a role in denying them pre-termination hearings....

The remaining factual allegations that the Employees provided in their pleadings undermine the plausibility of their “religious animus” theory.  First consider Hunter’s August 23, 2021, email discussing DCYF’s communications plan for vaccination.  The goal of this plan was to convince as many DCYF employees as possible to get vaccinated.  Part of the plan involved addressing various potential objections to vaccination: medical safety, convenience, religious objections, and political tribalism.  This plan did not single out religiously motivated objections for special treatment.  Religious objections were included among several secular objections, and the aim of the plan was to convince DCYF employees that their concerns about vaccination were unfounded, regardless of the religious or secular character of those concerns.  That religious objections were one of several objections to address does not, without more, indicate hostility toward religion....

Catholic Sisters Sue To Invalidate New York's Assisted Suicide Counseling Requirement

Last week, four Orders of Catholic Sisters along with the Catholic Diocese and Bishop of Rockville Centre, New York, filed suit in a New York federal district court challenging, at least as applied to them, the constitutionality of New York's Medical Aid in Dying Act as it interacts with the state's Palliative Care Information Act. Labelling these a "Suicide Counseling Mandate", the 102-page complaint (full text) in Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, Inc. v. James, (ND NY, filed 7/17/2026) alleges in part:

13. The many New York nurse practitioners, doctors, mental health professionals, hospitals, and care homes with religious or moral objections to participating in assisted suicide will have nowhere to go, because New York’s purported “opt-out” is among the narrowest in the nation, and doesn’t apply at all to independent assisted living facilities, including those run by the Benedictine Sisters. The Catholic patients who wish to die without being offered the chance to kill themselves at their lowest moment will be left out in the cold.....

15. First, the First Amendment’s protected sphere of church autonomy requires the government to respect and stay out of matters of governance within religious institutions, such as how the Catholic Church chooses to implement its beliefs on the sanctity of human life and the decision of religious communities to form themselves around those same principles. 

16. Second, its protection of the free exercise of religion prohibits the government from burdening the sincere religious beliefs of Plaintiffs and the patients they serve unless the state is furthering an interest of the highest order and using the least restrictive means to do so—an exceedingly high bar Defendants cannot meet.  

17. Third, its protections against religious gerrymanders prohibit the government from enacting legal burdens that fall uniquely on religious adherents—such as those who object to providing assisted suicide. 

18. Fourth, its protections against compelled speech prevent the government from forcing Catholic doctors and nurses to speak the government’s preferred, supportive message of assisted suicide. 

19. And fifth, its protections for freedom of association allow the Catholic Church, its various communities, and the patients they serve, to organize themselves into like-minded communities with the same values and beliefs—the mission of which is to live faithfully according to those beliefs, for however long or short a time....

Becket issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.

Britain Proposes Reform of Laws on Religious and Non-Religious Marriage Ceremonies

 On July 16, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Justice published an Open Consultation Document titled Tying the Knot: Reforming Weddings Law in England and Wales (full text). The forward to the Document reads in part:

Current weddings law is still built on rules dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. It belongs to a different age and no longer reflects the diverse society we are today. The result is a system that is complicated, inconsistent and sometimes unfair, treating different groups in different ways.

The Anglican, Jewish and Quaker faiths each have their own legal framework, while every other religious group must fit within a single set of rules, which often fail to reflect their traditions. Civil weddings are governed by another set of rules altogether. And non-religious belief organisations, including Humanists, cannot conduct legally binding weddings at all.

The law also places outdated restrictions on where people can marry and how their ceremony can be conducted.

This complex mix of laws can cause real problems for couples, particularly those who want a religious wedding. Some feel forced to pay for two different ceremonies, one legal and one belief based. Some enter into a marriage that isn’t legally recognised. Others feel they have little choice but to marry in a way which doesn’t reflect their beliefs, marring what should be a joyous occasion....

Non-religious couples also face unnecessary challenges, including being confined to choosing a location from a limited range of approved buildings. Yet there is no reason a wedding taking place on a beach, in a forest, or in a family garden can’t carry the same dignity and importance of a wedding held in a more traditional venue....

These reforms will create a modern framework that reflects our society today – giving couples more choice over who officiates over their wedding, where they can marry and how they celebrate one of the most important days of their lives....

But we are also clear that reform must not come at the expense of safeguards. Our proposals preserve the dignity and significance of marriage..... We will also strengthen protections against forced, predatory and sham marriages – to ensure marriages are always entered into freely, with informed consent, and are not used to exploit vulnerable people or gain unfair advantage....

The proposals are open for online comment from the public until September 24.  [Thanks to Law & Religion UK for the lead.]

Texas Court Holds That Hindu Temple's Bylaws Are Invalid

In Sri Shirdi Sai Baba Temple of Austin v. Lam, (TX Bus. Ct., July 14, 2026), the Texas Business Court's holding that a non-profit corporation's Certificate of Formation controls over by-laws that conflict with the Certificate of Formation settled a complex battle over control of a Hindu Temple. The Temple's Certificate of Formation placed management of the Temple in a board of directors and stated that the Temple "will have no members." In 2024, the Temple's Board resigned in the wake of a fraudulent donation-matching scheme that was discovered at the Temple. The new Board adopted Bylaws that purported to vest control of the Temple in a General Body of Trustees, defined as devotees who contribute a one-time membership fee of $20,000. An attorney advised the Board that the bylaws were invalid. Nevertheless, one faction went ahead and held an election of a new Board by the Trustees. The court refused to issue a declaratory judgment that would have validated the election, saying in part:

Texas courts apply a “neutral principles methodology,” under which they lack jurisdiction to decide, and “must defer to the decisions of appropriate ecclesiastical decision makers” with respect to, “questions of an ecclesiastical or inherently religious nature,” but “apply neutral principles of law to non-ecclesiastical issues involving religious entities,” including issues of corporate formation and governance, “in the same manner as they apply those principles to other entities and issues.” This case presents a non-ecclesiastical issue of corporate governance that can be decided by neutral application of Texas corporate law, such that the Court has jurisdiction.

Recent Articles of Interest

 From SSRN:

• Nicola Lucchi, Public Order, Morality, and their Religious Foundations in Patent Law, (in E. Bonadio, N. Lucchi; B. Khan (eds), IP & Religion (Forthcoming, Hart Publishing, 2026)).
• Jon Auror, From Rest to Attendance: The 2004 Proclamation of Ahn Shil Il (安 侍日) and Calendrical Innovation in the Unification Movement, (June 26, 2026).
• Joung Hwang, The Misspecified Canon and the Failure of Cultural Updating, (June 25, 2026).
• Nicolin Decker, The Tithe as Ecclesiastical Economic Restraint Doctrine: Provision, Humility, and the Architecture of Spiritual Authority, (June 21, 2026).
• Anton Sorkin, How Law Schools Can Better Cultivate a Culture of Engagement and Dialogue, (June 22, 2026).
• Charles Plambeck & Brooks Graebner, The Road to Disestablishment: Church-State Relations in Colonial North Carolina and the Constitution of 1776, (May 02, 2026).
• Donata Anna Garsia, After the Natural Law: A Review Essay on J. L. Hill's Account of the Classical Worldview, (July 08, 2026).
• Christian "Cece" Worley, What About the Black Church’s History and Tradition? Exposing Covert Religious Establishment in “History and Tradition” Jurisprudence, (May 05, 2026).
• Thomas A. Smith, Catholic Constitutional Republicanism: Suarez, the School of Salamanca, and the American Law of Public Power, (July 13, 2026).
• Cathay Smith, A Religious Organization is Suing its Critics, and the Weapon of Choice is Copyright—RRT v. Cheryl Bawtinheimer, (March 17, 2026).
• Bruce Davis, Indecent Exposure And The Court As Custos Morum, (March 31, 2024).
• Eric Heinze, Natalie Alkiviadou, Tom Herrenberg, Sejal Parmar & Ioanna Tourkochoriti, The Oxford Handbook of Hate Speech: General Introduction, (Queen Mary Law Research Paper No. 490 (2026)).

From SSRN (Islamic Law):

• Bahman Khodadadi, Between Orthodoxy and Reform: Theorizing the Suspension of Islamic Corporal Punishments in Shiʿi Theocracy (June 15, 2026).
• Muhammad Irfan Haroon, "The Two-finger Test in Pakistani Rape Law: A Constitutional, Comparative, and Hanafi Critique", (June 27, 2026).
• Syed Muhammad Usman Ghani & Bilal Hussain, The Role of the Council of Islamic Ideology in the Promotion of Islamic Thought in Pakistan, (June 30, 2025).
• Elvir (Nedžad) Muslić, The Branches of Faith, (June 26, 2026).
• Mohd Muaaz Ansari, Karbala and the Modern Muslim: A Forgotten Legacy of Awakening, (June 20, 2026).
• Khuda Bakhsh, Form or Substance? A Uṣūlī and Maxim-Based Appraisal of Car Financing in Pakistani Islamic Banking, with Special Reference to Diminishing Mushārakah (Mushārakah Mutanāqiṣah), (June 19, 026).
• Muhammad Asif Khan & Qaisar Abbas, Marriage, Contribution, and Retained Enrichment: Towards a Classificatory Framework for Pakistani Law, (June 26, 2026).
• Osama S. Qatrani, When a Latin Chronicle Made the Muslim Caliph Judge the Christian King: King John’s Alleged Embassy to the Almohad Court (1212), (June 18, 2026).
• Saad Khizar Bosal, Before Ḥasan al-Baṣrī: The Khutba Fadakiyya as the Founding Document of Islamic Kalām A Computational Theology Analysis with Ṣadrān, Akbarian, and Muṭahharī Frameworks, (June 20, 2026).
• Irman Syahriar, Indera Dewi, Fifi Loanardy, Jamil Khairunnisah & Bukak Hussain, Judicial Neutrality in Corruption Trials: A Contemporary Islamic Law Perspective on Independence in Transitional Legal Systems, (December 31, 2025).
• Mohammad Tareque, Al-Bayʿ, Al-Dayn and Al-Ribā: A Qurʾān-First Reconstruction of Deferred Commercial Obligation, Ribā Escalation, and Debt Governance, (June 13, 2026).

From SmartCILP and elsewhere:

• SYMPOSIUM, In Search of Common Ground: Religion and Secularism in a Liberal Democratic Society, 100 Chicago Kent Law Review 485-934 (2025).
• Amanda Harmon Cooley, Complicit Nullification: The Illegitimate (Abrogation) of School Religious Liberty Precedent, 47 Cardozo Law Review 975-1044 (2026).
• Arvind Kurian Abraham, America at 250: A “Christian Nation,” But Which Christianity?, Balkinization, July 17, 2026).

Pastor's Suit for Breach of Contract and Defamation Is Dismissed Under Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine

 In Lovelace v. Mt. Zion Baptist Church, (MI App., July 15, 2026), a Michigan state appellate court, invoking the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, affirmed a trial court's dismissal of contract and defamation claims by a pastor whose employment contract was cancelled by a vote of church members. The court said in part:

We first address plaintiff’s ... theory ... that the church breached the agreement by terminating him for actions he was contractually permitted to take.  This theory would require a civil court to decide whether church leadership correctly concluded that plaintiff had “abused his authority”....  That inquiry would require the court to decide questions of church governance and authority.  “Under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, apparently derived from both First Amendment religion clauses, civil courts may not redetermine the correctness of ... some decision relating to government of the religious polity.”...

Here, plaintiff asks us to determine that the church and its leadership exceeded their authority when they called the April 2022 meetings to discuss his future as senior pastor and invited guest pastors to oversee those meeting....

Under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, a civil court may not decide those questions because it would generally be inconsistent with religious liberty for civil courts to “inquire into the regularity of the proceedings of church tribunals having cognizance of such matters.... 

... [E]ven the seemingly straightforward question whether the termination process in plaintiff’s employment agreement was followed cannot be answered here through neutral legal principles without infringing on the religious liberty of the church and its members....

... [P]laintiff’s tortious-interference claim fails because he cannot establish that the individual defendants were third parties to the employment agreement.  And even if plaintiff could satisfy that threshold requirement, adjudicating the breach and justification elements of his claim would require the resolution of ecclesiastical questions...

Plaintiff’s defamation theory is that the individual defendants stated that he lacked authority to access the church’s bank accounts, and that this statement was false because his employment agreement gave him broad authority over the church’s spiritual and secular affairs....

For the statement to be actionable, however, a civil court would have to determine that it was false.... The statement ... would be provable as false only if the trial court parsed the agreement and determined which powers belonged to the senior pastor.

2nd Circuit: Supreme Court's Title VII Test Was Not Applied by Trial Court in Religious Accommodation Case

In Bergin v. New York State Unified Court System, (2d Cir., July 15, 2026), the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a York federal district court's ruling in favor of a court officer who was denied a religious exemption from the New York State Court System's Covid vaccine mandate. The 2nd Circuit held that the district court had applied an old Title VII test developed by the 2nd Circuit instead of the test developed by the Supreme Court in its 2015 Abercrombie & Fitch case. It remanded the case for the district court to apply the correct test.  The court said in part:

In Abercrombie, the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff need not inform her employer of the need for accommodation in order to state a Title VII claim, but that she must demonstrate that the employer acted out of a desire to avoid offering an accommodation.  Our prior rule—which did include an employer-knowledge requirement and did not expressly require a showing of motive—was abrogated by Abercrombie.

The Western New York Daily Record reports on the decision.