Objective coverage of church-state and religious liberty developments, with extensive links to primary sources.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Government Asks For Dismissal of Suit Against Air Force Academy
Hindu Festival Challenged In Indian Supreme Court
The suit follows calls last month by ANHAD for the Indian government to ban the upcoming Shabri Kumbh, scheduled to begin February 11. (DNA India report.) ANHAD claims the festival will be used to convert tribal members to Hinduism. Many of the tribal people who have followed their own tribal religion, have been converted to Christianity. Right wing Hindus claim the conversions were obtained through improper use of gifts to the individuals. The festival is being organized by the right-wing Hindu Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS), which has ties with the country's main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata. Extensive additional background on the controversy is in a Jan. 6 article in Rediff India Abroad.
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Circumcision As A Protected Religious Practice
Freedom of Press?-- US, Jordan and South Africa React Differently On Cartoon Controversy
MR. MCCORMACK: For us, freedom of expression is at the core of our democracy and it is something that we have shed blood and treasure around the world to defend and we will continue to do so. That said, there are other aspects to democracy, our democracy -- democracies around the world -- and that is to promote understanding, to promote respect for minority rights, to try to appreciate the differences that may exist among us....
[W]e believe that it is an important principle that peoples around the world encourage dialogue, not violence; dialogue, not misunderstanding and that when you see an image that is offensive to another particular group, to speak out against that. Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images or any other religious belief. We have to remember and respect the deeply held beliefs of those who have different beliefs from us. But it is important that we also support the rights of individuals to express their freely held views....
QUESTION: When you say "unacceptable," it applies some sort of action against the people who perpetrate those images.
MR. MCCORMACK: No. I think I made it very clear that our defense of freedom of expression and the ability of individuals and media organizations to engage in free expression is forthright and it is strong, you know. This is -- our First Amendment rights, the freedom of expression, are some of the most strongly held and dearly held views that we have here in America. And certainly nothing that I said, I would hope, would imply any diminution of that support....
QUESTION: Do you caution America media against publishing those cartoons?
MR. MCCORMACK: That's for you and your editors to decide, and that's not for the government. We don't own the printing presses.... [W]e, as a Government, have made our views known on the question of these images. We find them offensive. We understand why others may find them offensive. We have urged tolerance and understanding. That -- all of that said, the media organizations are going to have to make their own decisions concerning what is printed... [I]t's not for the U.S. Government to dictate what is printed.
The BBC yesterday reported that in Jordan, two newspapers-- Shihan and al-Mehwar-- became the first in the Arab world to reprint some the cartoons. Their editors were promptly arrested and accused of insulting religion under Jordan's press and publications law. Jihad Momani, editor of Shihan, was also fired by his newspaper, which withdrew copies of the paper from newsstands. Momani had published three of the cartoons along with an editorial questioning whether the reaction in the Muslim world was justified. He later issued an apology.
In South Africa, where only one paper has published one of the cartoons so far, the Johannesburg High Court issued an order Friday night against several newspapers prohibiting them from publishing any cartoon, caricature or drawing of Muhammad. South Africa's Sunday Tribune reports that the pre-emptive order came in a suit filed by the Jamiat-ul Ulama of Transvaal.
On Saturday, protesters in Syria set fire to the Danish and Norwegian embassies (AP). On Sunday, Denmark's embassy in Lebanon was torched (AP).
For prior postings on the controversy, see 1, 2, 3 , 4 .UPDATE: On Sunday, according to Islam Online, several Muslim leaders called on the international community and the United Nations to enact international prohibitions on insulting religions and religious symbols. Meanwhile, HonestReporting.com accused Arab countries of ignoring insulting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel cartoons regularly published in their own media.
Ohio Governor On Intelligent Design
State Board of Education member Martha W. Wise, who favors removing any reference to intelligent design from the state's lesson plan, last month asked state Attorney General Jim Petro for an opinion on the legality of Ohio's guidelines and lesson plan. However Petro refused because the request did not come from the full board. Petro is campaigning in a hotly contested Republican primary for governor, and his ads have overtly used religious themes (see prior posting).
Two Senate Resolutions Passed
S. Res. 364 is titled "A Resolution Honoring the Valuable Contributions of Catholic Schools In the United States". UPDATE On Feb. 8, the House of Representatives passed a similar resolution. H.Res. 657.
S. Res. 366, among other things, designates Feb. 2-9 as a week of prayer and reflection for the people of Uganda. It expresses concern for the Ugandan victims of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army, and asks Sudan, Uganda, and the international community to bring justice and humanitarian assistance to Northern Uganda.
First Amendment Challenge To Refusal of School Bussing Not Moot
Friday, February 03, 2006
Second Circuit Upholds NYC Schools' Holiday Display Policy
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Loosens Church Land Tax Exemptions
National Prayer Breakfast More Inclusive This Year
As reported in AP stories (here and here), this year's event was more ecumenical than the Prayer Breakfasts of past years. The breakfast, which usually draws over 3500 attendees, is privately funded and is sponsored by the Fellowship Foundation, an evangelical Christian group. Presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush have attended, as have members of Congress and world leaders. In past years, the event has had a decidedly Christian tone. This year, however, the Breakfast was co-chaired for the first time by a Jew, Sen. Norm Coleman who, along with Sen. Joseph Lieberman, offered Hebrew prayers. The Breakfast also featured as a speaker a prominent Muslim, King Abdullah II of Jordan. Nathan J. Diament, director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America praised the new inclusiveness of the Breakfast.
More Explanations and Views On the Muhammad Cartoon Battle
Last November, Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian ... put together a delegation that traveled to the Middle East to discuss the issue of the cartoons with senior officials and prominent Islamic scholars. "We want to internationalize this issue so that the Danish government will realize that the cartoons were insulting, not only to Muslims in Denmark, but also to Muslims worldwide," said Abu Laban.... However, the Danish Muslim delegation showed much more than the 12 cartoons published by Jyllands Posten. In the booklet it presented during its tour of the Middle East, the delegation included other cartoons of Mohammed that were highly offensive, including one where the Prophet has a pig face. But these additional pictures were NOT published by the newspaper, but were completely fabricated by the delegation and inserted in the booklet (which has been obtained and made available to me by Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet). The delegation has claimed that the differentiation was made to their interlocutors, even though the claim has not been independently verified.Meanwhile in a sidebar to its story today on the controversy, the Associated Press sets out a more conventional explanation, focusing on the prohibition in Islamic law of any kind of depictions of Muhammad.
The Toronto Star carries an interesting story on comments by Ruth Mas, a lecturer in Islamic studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, who argues that the cartoons reflect not blasphemy, but racism. The article also quotes Michael Muhammad Pfaff, of the German Muslim League, who argues that the cartoons are reminiscent of the caricatures of Jews in the Nazi propaganda sheet Der Sturmer.
Finally, SFGate runs excerpts from editorials around the world on the controversy. (See prior related postings on the cartoon controversy 1, 2, 3 .)
Jewish Democrats Criticize Boehner's Record
House of Lords To Hear Muslim Student's Appeal
UPDATE: A Press Association report discusses the arguments that were made before the Law Lords.
British Hindus and Sikhs May Sue To Build Funeral Pyre
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Muhammad Cartoon Controversy Continues-- Latest Developments
Also according to the AP story, today Palestinian gunmen jumped on the outer wall of a European Union office in Gaza City and demanded an apology for the drawings. Today's Jerusalem Post reports that a leaflet signed by a Fatah militia and the Islamic Jihad had said the EU office and churches in Gaza could come under attack and urged all French citizens to leave Gaza. On Wednesday night, the Fatah-affiliated Aksa Martyrs' Brigades and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine threatened to blow up the Danish and Norwegian consulates in the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Army Radio reported. And, according to Haaretz, these threats have led Norway to close its Palestinian Authority representative office in the West Bank.
Ten Commandments Battles Continue in Legislatures and Courts
In Georgia yesterday, the House of Representatives by a vote of 140-26 approved HB 914. The bill would permit "a uniform, pedagogically sound, distinctive, and appropriate presentation of the story of the role of religion in the constitutional history of America and Georgia" to be "publicly displayed in governmental buildings throughout the State of Georgia". The bill sets out the text of the Declaration of Independence, the Mayflower Compact and the King James version of the Ten Commandments which, together with a prescribed statement captioned "context for acknowledging America's Religious Heritage", comprise the document that the Secretary of State is to prepare and distribute to governmental entities. The Associated Press, reporting on the House vote, quoted one Republican Rep. Fran Millar, who said: "If we lump the Bible with the Mayflower Compact and the Declaration of Independence, are we demeaning the Bible?"
Meanwhile, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, in the Kentucky House of Representatives on Tuesday, the Committee on State Government approved House Bill 277. It permits state and local governmental agencies and public schools to display "historical artifacts, monuments, symbols and texts, including but not limited to religious materials", if the displays have historical and cultural, rather than religious, purposes. At the last minute, however, the Committee tacked on an amendment that calls for the posting of "In God We Trust" above the dais of the speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives. Backers fear this provision will threaten the constitutionality of the entire bill.
There have also been developments in the courts. Today's Deseret Morning News reports that Utah federal district Judge Dee Benson had denied preliminary relief to plaintiffs in a case in which a Salt Lake City religious group is seeking permission to place a monument declaring Summum's Seven Aphorisms next to a 10 Commandments monument in a Pleasant Grove, Utah park. A Sunstone taken from the LDS temple at Nauvoo, Ill., and donated by a Pleasant Grove resident is also in the park. The city says that it has a long-standing, though unwritten, policy of only allowing monuments that relate to the city's history or donated by those with long-standing ties to the Pleasant Grove community. (See prior related posting.)
Falun Gong Found Protected Under Ontario Human Rights Code
Further Proceedings In 2 Jail Free-Exercise Cases
Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that in the Western District of Arkansas, federal district Judge Jimm Larry Hendren accepted most of a magistrate's findings, agreeing that denying a Native American prisoner access to a prayer feather was not reasonably related to the goal of security in a county jail. (See prior posting.) However the judge rejected the magistrate's imposition of nominal damages, finding that the defendants had qualified immunity.
In Andreola v. State of Wisconsin, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3359 (ED Wis., Jan. 18, 2006), after previously granting summary judgment to defendants on an inmate's other claims, a Wisconsin federal district court now also granted defendants summary judgment on a claim under RLUIPA by an Orthodox Jewish pre-trial detainee who was not given access to kosher food meeting his religious requirements while held in the Rock County Jail. Instead he was served selected items from the jail's regular menu. Strictly kosher food was not easily available in the county where the jail was located. The court found a compelling security interest in not permitting the inmate to prepare his own food, and a compelling interest in preserving county funds and not subsidizing religion in the jail's refusal to serve plaintiff prepackaged kosher meals.
Italian Judge Suspended After Banning Crosses From His Courtroom
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Britain's Religious Hatred Bill Passes In Modified Form
Tacoma Municipal Court To Change No-Hat Policy
Navajos' Free Exercise Claim Rejected
Indian Muslims Reject Uniform Civil Code
Legislators Ask NV Pharmacy Board To End Consideration Of Rules
Summary Judgment Denied In Two Prisoner Claims
In Meyer v. Teslik, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3003 (WD Wis., Jan. 26. 2006), a Wisconsin federal district court refused to grant summary judgment to defendant, a prison chaplain, in a case alleging denial of a Native American prisoner's right to attend group religious services. The court found that a dispute remained as to whether or not the omission of the inmate's name from the list of those authorized to attend services was intentional.
In Collins v. Alameida, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3258 (ED Cal., Jan. 30, 2006), a California federal district judge refused to grant summary judgment to Avenal State Prison officials in a case challenging prison grooming regulations under RLUIPA. Inmate Collins claimed that his Nazarite religious beliefs prevented him from cutting his hair. The court found that defendants had failed to prove that that the California Department of Corrections grooming standards are the least restrictive means of furthering their interest of maintaining institutional safety and security.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Update on Muslim Challenge To Danish Jyllands-Posten Cartoons
- Jyllands-Posten sent an apology to "all Muslims" in a statement sent to the Jordanian News Agency. According to the AP, on Sunday the newspaper also printed a statement in Arabic addressed to Saudis, who had initiated the boycott against Danish products. It said the drawings were published as part of a Danish dialogue about freedom of expression but were misinterpreted "as if it were a campaign against Muslims in Denmark and in the Islamic world."
- The Scotsman reports that in a live television interview, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Denmark's government "cannot make apologies on behalf of a Danish newspaper. That is not how our democracy works. Independent media cannot be edited by the government." But he did appeal to Muslim groups in Denmark to defuse the situation once the paper itself issued its apology, according to Bloomberg.com.
- The Irish Examiner reported that in Gaza, gunmen seized an EU office as part of the protest. Also a boycott of Danish goods is beginning to have an effect. Danish firm Arla Foods, which employs 800 in Saudi Arabia, says it is losing over 1 million Euros a day. It has threatened to suspend production at its dairy plant in Riyadh and lay off its workforce, after 2 of its employees were attacked and beaten on Sunday.
- A roadside bomb targeted a joint Danish-Iraqi military patrol near the southern city of Basra on Monday. According to Al-Jazeerah, coalition forces are investigating if there was any link between the attack and publication of theMuhammadd drawings.
- Internet hackers have launched attacks on the web site of Jyllands-Posten and other Danish papers, according to Viking Observer. In response, Danish hackers have stuck back.
- Denmark has warned its citizens against non-crucial travel to Saudi Arabia, and has urged Danes to be cautious in countries such as Egypt, Iran, Lebanon, Algeria, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories, according to Newswire.co.nz.
Additional blog coverage is on PBS Watch and Brussels Journal.
Falun Gong Protest Exclusion From San Francisco Parade
World AIDS Funding By US Goes Increasingly To Religious Groups
Texas State Board of Educations Asks AG To Permit Them To Review Textbooks
Monday, January 30, 2006
Cartoons In Danish Paper Spur Yemen's Parliament and Other Arab States To Act
This morning, Bloomberg reported that in the West Bank, the Danish flag was burnt in protest over the cartoons. In Gaza, protesters demanded that Danes and Norwegians be sent home until an apology is forthcoming. Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen are now boycotting Danish goods. And both Saudi Arabia and Libya have closed their embassies in Copenhagen.
Arab concern began to grow when Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen refused last October to meet ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries to discuss censuring the Jyllands-Posten paper. In December, a Danish umbrella group of 21 Muslim organizations sent a delegation to the Middle East to rally support against Denmark. The group met Muslim leaders including the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and the General Secretary of the Arab League, Amre Moussa. According to Newspaperindex.com, a complaint from the Organization of Islamic Conferences led Louise Arbour - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - to appoint two UN experts on racism to carry out a detailed investigation into what Arbour characterizes as a "disrespect for belief."
Newspaperindex.com has also made the controversial cartoons available online.
Three Prisoner Free Exercise Decisions Become Available
In Orafan v. Goord, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2931 (ND NY, January 17, 2006), five Shiite Muslim prisoners from three different New York facilities sued claiming that furnishing them only a unified Muslim religious service rather than a separate Shiite Jumah service violated their state and federal free exercise rights, violated RLUIPA and amounted to an establishment of religion. The court rejected all plaintiffs' claims except for a limited free exercise claim based on discriminatory treatment and comments by prison chaplains acting in their administrative capacities.
In Boles v. Neet, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39662 (D. Colo., Nov. 30, 2005), a Colorado federal district court reviewed the recommendation of a magistrate judge (2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39655) in a case in which an Orthodox Jewish prisoner complained that the was not permitted to wear his yarmulke and tallit katan while he was being transported outside a state prison facility for medical treatment or eye surgery. Subsequently, however, the Colorado Department of Corrections reversed its policy. The court, nevertheless, permitted plaintiff to proceed with his First Amendment free exercise claim for damages stemming from physical injury, mental anguish and emotional distress from the infringement of his religious practice. However, the court held that damages, as opposed to injunctive or declaratory relief, were not available under RLUIPA.
In Newsome v. Ozmint, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39659 (D. SC, Nov. 29, 2005), a federal magistrate judge in South Carolina recommended dismissal of general claims by two Muslim prisoners that their free exercise and equal protection rights were being infringed because they were not permitted to congregate for prayer five times a day in the prison chapel area. Prison officials indicated that the limitations on access to the chapel stemmed from past security problems, and that arrangements for prayer twice a day in day rooms, as well as Friday congregational prayer in the chapel, have been made.
Iraq Internal Fights Turn More Sectarian
Politicians "Play the 'God' Card"
Sectarian Prayers Still Used In Some California Public Meetings
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Revisionist View Of Bin Laden As Religious Reformer Suggested
In 100 years ... we may look back on Bin Laden not only as a murderous criminal but as one of the principal figures of ... the Islamic reformation. Indeed, historians may one day place Bin Laden alongside 16th century Christian revolutionaries ... as a "reformation radical" who pushed the principle of religious individualism to terrifying limits. ...
[A]s Muslims have increasingly been forced to regard themselves ... as citizens of individual nation-states, a sense of individualism has begun to infuse this essentially communal faith. ...[T]he authority of traditional clerical institutions over their Muslim communities has been eroding. ... Muslims now have access through the Internet (an invention whose role in the Islamic reformation parallels that of the printing press in the Christian Reformation) to the religious opinions of myriad Islamic activists, academics, self-styled preachers, militants and cult leaders throughout the world who are, for better or worse, reshaping the faith....
Like Luther, Bin Laden is concerned above all else with "purifying" his own religious community.... Bin Laden's primary target is neither Christians nor Jews (both of whom he refers to as "the far enemy"), but rather those Muslims who do not share his puritanical view of Islam and who, as a consequence, make up the overwhelming majority of Al Qaeda's victims.
Bin Laden has also deliberately placed himself in direct opposition to the institutional authorities of his religion by repeatedly issuing fatwas and making judgments on Islamic law — things that, according to Islamic tradition, only a cleric affiliated with one of Islam's recognized schools of law has the authority to do.
Even more striking is his fundamental reinterpretation of jihad: What was once considered a collective duty to be carried out solely at the behest of a qualified cleric has become a radically individualistic obligation totally divorced from institutional authority....
RLUIPA Upheld Against Spending Clause Challenge
Legislative Prayer Offered By Imam
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Hamas Will Introduce Changes Based On Islamic Law In PA
UPDATE: Sunday's Washington Post carries a related article by Scott Wilson, Some Palestinians See End of Secular Dream.
California Teachers Have Religious Objections To Classroom Posters
The banners, along with faculty training about racism and homophobia, were required in the 2002 settlement of a lawsuit filed by a San Leandro High teacher who was disciplined after teaching those topics in his honors English class in the mid-1990s. Various aspects of the story were reported Wednesday and Thursday by the San Francisco Chronicle, WorldNet Daily, and 365Gay (1 , 2). School principal Amy Furtado said that her expectation is compliance by next week's deadline for hanging the posters. Superintendent Christine Lim who is responsible for the policy said, "This is not about religion, sex or a belief system. This is about educators making sure our schools are safe for our children, regardless of their sexual orientation." [Thanks to Rick Duncan via Religionlaw listserv for the information.]
Initial Hearing In Italy On Charges of False Assertions About Jesus
New Law and Religion Scholarship
From Bepress:
Rishi S. Bagga, Living by the Sword: The Free Exercise of Religion and the Sikh Struggle for the Right to Carry a Kirpan, (Jan. 2006).
Friday, January 27, 2006
Today Is International Holocaust Remembrance Day
January 27 competes with three other commemoration dates. The most widely recognized date until now has been Yom Hashoah-- the 27th of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. This date was set by the Israeli Knesset in 1951. Here is an account by Jennifer Rosenberg on how that date was chosen:
The Zionists in Israel, many of whom had fought in the ghettos or as partisans, wanted to commemorate the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising - April 19, 1943. But this date on the Hebrew calendar is the 15th of Nissan - the beginning of Passover, a very important and happy holiday. Orthodox Jews objected to this date.Some Jews choose one of two other dates, as described by Rabbi David Golinkin:
For two years, the date was debated. Finally, in 1950, compromises and bargaining began. The 27th of Nissan was chosen, which falls beyond Passover but within the time span of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Orthodox Jews still did not like this date because it was a day of mourning within the traditionally happy month of Nissan. As a final effort to compromise, it was decided that if the 27th of Nissan would affect Shabbat (fall on Friday or Saturday), then it would be moved to the following Sunday.
On April 12, 1951, the Knesset (Israel's parliament) proclaimed Yom Hashoah U'Mered HaGetaot (Holocaust and Ghetto Revolt Remembrance Day) to be the 27th of Nissan. The name later became known as Yom Hashoah Ve Hagevurah (Devastation and Heroism Day) and even later simplified to Yom Hashoah.
The Orthodox Rabbinate of Israel attempted to promote the Tenth of Tevet -- a traditional fast day commemorating the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem in ancient times -- as the "General Kaddish Day" in which Jews should recite the memorial prayer and light candles in memory of those who perished in the Holocaust. Several ultra-Orthodox rabbis have recommended adding piyyutim (religious poems) that were written by contemporary rabbis to the liturgy of the Ninth of Av, and many communities follow this custom. Ismar Schorsch, the chancellor of the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary, has also suggested moving Holocaust commemorations to Tisha b'Av, because that is the day in which Judaism ritualizes its most horrible destructions.
Charities Protest Provision In Pending Tax Relief Bill
Mass. Gov. Romney Discusses His Religion and 2008 Presidential Chances
Saudi Officials Seek Clerical Permission For Changes In Hajj To Promote Safety
British University Bars Christian Group For Discrimination
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Justice Breyer Discusses Establishment Clause
When confronted with a question about Jewish law, Breyer said that he didn't know that much about it, quipping that he was "bar mitzvahed in a Reform congregation." He added, however, that he believes the profession of law is squarely in the Jewish tradition of social justice.
Newly Elected Canadian Prime Minister Acknowledges God In Victory Speech
Jewish Chaplain In Dispute With AG Over Defense In Prisoner Suit
A New 10 Commandments Display Approved By Indiana City
New Hampshire Bill Proposes Disclosure of Abuse Disclosed In Confessions
Massachusetts House Votes Down Financial Reporting Bill
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Lobbying On Portrayal Of Religions In Textbooks
Anti-Evolution Legislation Pending In Five States
- Mississippi-- H.B. 953 (in Committee) and S.B. 2427 (in Committee)
- New York-- A.B. 8036 (in Committee)
- Oklahoma-- H.B. 2107 (Introduced) and H.B. 2526 (Introduced)
- Pennsylvania-- H.B. 1007 (in Committee)
- Utah-- S.B. 96 (passed Senate)
Blog From the Capital has more on the Utah bill.
Pope's Encyclical On Church's Relation To Government In Achieving Just Society
The Church's social teaching argues on the basis of reason and natural law, namely, on the basis of what is in accord with the nature of every human being. It recognizes that it is not the Church's responsibility to make this teaching prevail in political life. Rather, the Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice as well as greater readiness to act accordingly, even when this might involve conflict with situations of personal interest. Building a just social and civil order, wherein each person receives what is his or her due, is an essential task which every generation must take up anew. As a political task, this cannot be the Church's immediate responsibility. Yet, since it is also a most important human responsibility, the Church is duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically.
The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible. She cannot and must not replace the State. Yet at the same time she cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice. She has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice, which always demands sacrifice, cannot prevail and prosper. A just society must be the achievement of politics, not of the Church. Yet the promotion of justice through efforts to bring about openness of mind and will to the demands of the common good is something which concerns the Church deeply.
8th Circuit Remands Prisoner's Establishment Clause Claim
Illegal Christian Evangelism In Morocco
Jurors May Be Excluded For Religious Objection To Death Penalty
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Zoning Enforcement Found Discriminatory and Vague
Malaysian Religious Authorities Focus on Music, Botox
In a separate development the Council is studying whether the key biological agent in botox treatments, known as Botulinum Toxin Type A, meets the Muslim requirement for food considered to be "halal", or permitted for human consumption. The panel is concerned as the use of botox has expanded from medical to cosmetic purposes.
South Carolina Debates Teaching of Evolution
This follows a series of events in which the EOC originally voted 8-7 to strike old wording that limited schools to teaching evolution; the state Board of Education voted to overrule that decision; but the state attorney general ruled that the Board of Education overstepped its authority in reinstituting the old guidelines because the new standards were in dispute. The state Education Department writes education standards; the EOC recommends approval or rejection of the standards but may not revise or rewrite them.
Recently Published In Law Reviews
Jill Goldenziel, Blaine's Name In Vain?: State Constitutions, School Choice, and Charitable Choice, 83 Denver Univ. Law Rev. 57-99 (2005).
Noah Feldman, Third Annual Henry Lecture: The Democratic Fatwa: Islam and Democracy in the Realm of Constitutional Politics; also Replies by Randall T. Coyne, Harry F. Tepker and Joseph T. Thai, 58 Oklahoma Law Rev. 1-57 (2005).
Israeli Party Supports Religion-State Separation
Paper Discusses Prison Program InnerChange
Monday, January 23, 2006
Decision Available In Boston Case On Standing To Challenge Sale of Land
Concerns That Hamas Success In Palestinian Elections Will Bring Sharia Restrictions
Virginia Legislation To Protect Against False Halal Labeling Introduced
Proposed Slovak-Vatican Treaty On Conscientious Objection
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Roe v. Wade's Anniversary-- And What Blackmun Said About Religion
In this context, it might be useful to look again at language from Justice Blackmun's original Roe v. Wade opinion, 410 US 113 (1973). Today, what he had to say about the view of religion toward abortion is often forgotten:
The absence of a common-law crime for pre-quickening abortion appears to have developed from a confluence of earlier philosophical, theological, and civil and canon law concepts of when life begins. These disciplines variously approached the question in terms of the point at which the embryo or fetus became "formed" or recognizably human, or in terms of when a "person" came into being, that is, infused with a "soul" or "animated." A loose consensus evolved in early English law that these events occurred at some point between conception and live birth. This was "mediate animation." Although Christian theology and the canon law came to fix the point of animation at 40 days for a male and 80 days for a female, a view that persisted until the 19th century, there was otherwise little agreement about the precise time of formation or animation. There was agreement, however, that prior to this point the fetus was to be regarded as part of the mother, and its destruction, therefore, was not homicide. Due to continued uncertainty about the precise time when animation occurred, to the lack of any empirical basis for the 40-80-day view, and perhaps to Aquinas' definition of movement as one of the two first principles of life, Bracton focused upon quickening as the critical point. The significance of quickening was echoed by later common-law scholars and found its way into the received common law in this country. ...
Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until live birth. This was the belief of the Stoics. It appears to be the predominant, though not the unanimous, attitude of the Jewish faith. It may be taken to represent also the position of a large segment of the Protestant community, insofar as that can be ascertained.... As we have noted, the common law found greater significance in quickening. Physicians and their scientific colleagues have regarded that event with less interest and have tended to focus either upon conception, upon live birth, or upon the interim point at which the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid.... The Aristotelian theory of "mediate animation," that held sway throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in Europe, continued to be official Roman Catholic dogma until the 19th century, despite opposition to this "ensoulment" theory from those in the Church who would recognize the existence of life from the moment of conception. The latter is now, of course, the official belief of the Catholic Church. As one brief amicus discloses, this is a view strongly held by many non-Catholics as well, and by many physicians. Substantial problems for precise definition of this view are posed, however, by new embryological data that purport to indicate that conception is a "process" over time, rather than an event, and by new medical techniques such as menstrual extraction, the "morning-after" pill, implantation of embryos, artificial insemination, and even artificial wombs.