Massachusetts House Supports "Under God" In Pledge

The Massachusetts House of Representatives has voted 115-31 in favor of a resolution asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reject attempts to remove the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance as recited daily in public schools. The Republican today reports that the resolution passed the Massachusetts House Sept. 28, two weeks after a U.S. District Court judge in Sacramento, Calif., ruled the pledge's reference to one nation "under God" violates a child's right to be free from "a coercive requirement to affirm God" in public schools.

High School Coach Quits After Team Prayer Prohibited

Football game prayer is not just a hot-button issue in the South, as I reported in a posting yesterday. It is equally contentious in New Jersey. WABC New York reported yesterday that East Brunswick New Jersey High School football coach Marcus Borden resigned after being told he could no longer lead the team in prayer before football games. A prayer by the team, led by the coach, giving thanks and asking for victory had been a 23 year tradition at the high school. The school said several parents of various religious backgrounds had complained about the prayer.

Michigan Pondering 10 Commandments Display

WLNS Lansing reported yesterday that Michigan legislators and the governor are beginning to consider whether there is a constitutional way of displaying the Ten Commandments at the state Capitol. A committee to consider the matter is scheduled to meet today. The committee will also meet later on to hear interested individuals testify on the issue.

Botswana Group Resists Measles Vaccination On Religious Grounds

In late September, All Africa.com reported that a religious group in Botswana were preparing to resist the government's national measles immunization and Vitamin-A campaign aimed a children in the country. The resistance comes from some members of the Johane Church of God (the Zezuru). Raphael Panganayi said that his followers would resist the vaccination program, saying that it would mean breaking their church rules. "I will never, under any circumstances, have my children immunised because doing so would be committing a sin. Why should I have them vaccinated when our church teaches us that the use of any kind of medicine is wrong?"

The threatened resistance seems to have been carried out. On Monday, Daily News Online reported that since the start of the immunization campaign, which was launched by Botswana's Health Minister Sheila Tlou on October 3, a majority of Bazezuru were reluctant to take their children for immunization.

City Council Resolves To Keep Prayer

The Anderson Independent-Mail yesterday reported that the City Council of Anderson, South Carolina wants to preserve its tradition of rotating among members of Council the responsibility for opening each Council meeting with a prayer, or choosing not to have a prayer, despite ACLU objections. Anderson Mayor Richard Shirley opened Monday night’s City Council meeting according to his custom of reading from a collection of invocations of a former U.S. Senate chaplain. The prayer ended with the words: "Through Jesus Christ Our Lord." Shirley insists (text of remarks) that his right to pray to Jesus insures the rights of any member of Council to pray according to his or her religious beliefs as well. He says he will resign if he is not permitted to continue to pray to Jesus. Council passed a resolution unanimously adopting a Policy that continues its long-standing practice of opening sessions with prayer. The resolution said: "The City Council expressly states that this moment of prayer should not be viewed as an attempt to establish a religion. Attendance during the prayer by a council member or the general public is not a requirement to participate in the City Council meeting."

Women In Bahrain Press For National Law On Personal Status

In Bahrain, the Supreme Council for Women (SCW) has launched a campaign for a new law to govern child custody cases, divorces, inheritances and other family disputes. According to Monday's Gulf Daily News, currently these matters are handled by religious Sharia courts. A study by the SCW and the Bahrain Centre for Studies and Research found that women were being treated unfairly by the current Sharia judicial system.

Paper Profiles Richard Land

Today's Boston Globe carries a long and interesting profile of Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Here is an example of the Globe's description of Land: "To his liberal foes, Land is easily the most confounding of religious right leaders. At least as steeped in Western history as biblical verse, this fan of Jane Austen and Thomas Wolfe boasts a doctorate of philosophy from Oxford and readily slips out of Southern Baptist vernacular into the language of the media elite. He frequently quotes Winston Churchill and tops the guest call-list when the subject on Washington's Sunday TV talk shows turn to faith and values. Last year he logged 160 media interviews. He counts Democrats among his best friends."

Israeli Government Funds Religious Ads; Shinui Objects

The Israeli government is funding an advertising campaign encouraging secular Israelis to participate in prayer and discussions this week on Yom Kippur eve at 250 community centers across the nation. The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday that the ads have become the subject of some controversy. Rabbi Michael Melchior, Deputy Minister for Israeli Society and the World Jewish Community, said that the aim of the ad campaign was to emphasize the relevance of Jewish holidays for all. However, MK Avraham Poraz (Shinui) called on the government Sunday to halt state funding for the ad campaign. His letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, "It is not the state's role to use tax payer's money to finance a campaign that encourages people to embrace religion".

Professor Shimon Sheetrit of the Hebrew University, a legal expert in religion-state issues said, "We are not in a state like the US that has a non-establishment clause or like France that is aggressively secular. We are in Israel, which is Jewish democratic state and provides funding for religious activity. About 95% of Israeli Jews fast on Yom Kippur. That is a clear consensus."

Football Game Prayers Persist In A Few Alabama High Schools

The Birmingham, Alabama News reports today that despite the U.S. Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Santa Fe Indepen. School Dist. v. Doe, in some parts of Alabama public schools allow students or ministers to pray over stadium public address systems before high school football games. ACLU of Alabama attorney Robert Varley says, "It's difficult for someone to come forward and complain about that kind of thing. They would be ostracized by the community. " After a 1997 federal court ruling against such prayer was issued by an Alabama federal district court, most schools in the state replaced pre-game prayers with moments of silence. However a few Alabama high schools have continued prayers over the public address system and almost dare anyone to try to stop them,

Senate To Hold Hearings On Saudi Literature In U.S. Mosques

The New York Sun reported last week that the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled hearings for October 25 to examine reports that documents inciting Muslims to acts of violence and which promote hatred of Jews and Christians were being distributed by the Saudi Arabian government to mosques in the U.S. The materials were first called to public attention in a report issued earlier this year by Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom. The Senate hearings are part of the Committee’s consideration of the Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 2005 (S. 1171).

Tribes Again Challenging Snow Bowl Development

Despite the 1983 D.C. Circuit opinion in Wilson v. Block that permitted development of the Snow Bowl ski area on the San Francisco Peaks in the Coconino National Forest, several Native American tribes are trying again. The Arizona Daily Sun reported yesterday that the Hopi, Navajo and Hualapai are suing to protect their sacred sites by preventing Snow Bowl from making snow there with reclaimed wastewater. The tribes claim that now the Religious Freedom Restoration Act gives their religious practices greater protection that they were awarded in the 1983 case.

School Prayer Dispute In Korea

Issues of school prayer are not limited to the United States. Sunday’s Korea Herald reported on a lawsuit pending in a Seoul Korea District court by a high school student raising religious freedom claims in challenging his expulsion from school. Kang Eui-seok, an agnostic, refused to attend high school chapel services, which along with a course in Christian education, is required. Supporting the student’s case are the Korea Institute for Religious Freedom, Christian Solidarity for Justice and Peace, Citizen Coalition for Religious Freedom in Schools, and Parents' Coalition for Realizing Human Education.

Another Move Against FLDS Control Of Arizona City

In another step against the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway polygamist Mormon sect, Arizona's attorney general is seeking a federal civil rights review of the entire police force of Colorado City. The development is reported in an AP story from Friday carried by Officer.com. It is claimed that the FLDS dominates Colorado City and adjacent Hildale, Utah. (See prior posting.) Other law enforcement officials and citizens claim that the Colorado City police force operates under direction of FLDS. Young men who had clashed with leaders of FLDS have complained of being threatened with arrest and forced to leave the city. There are also claims that the police have ignored complaints from women who were forced into marriage or subjected to violence.

Minority Groups Concerned Over Romania's Proposed Religion Law

Today the American Daily reports that minority religious communities in Romainia are concerned about the current draft of a new religion law and the way it has been rushed to Parliament under an "emergency procedure." The proposed law divides religious groups into three different categories, each with different rights. Eighteen recognized "religious denominations" or "cults" enjoy the greatest rights. Those with fewer than about 22,000 members can register as "religious associations" with lesser rights, while those with under 300 members can only function as "religious groups" which have no legal status. Religious activity by unregistered communities will be legal.

District Court Upholds RLUIPA Against Various Constitutional Challenges

In Gooden v. Crain, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22744 (ED Tex., Oct. 5, 2005), a Texas federal district court upheld the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act against a number of constitutional challenges. Pointing to decisions of various Courts of Appeal, the court rejected commerce clause, spending clause and Tenth Amendment challenges to the statute.

Prisoner's Protest of Removal As Sweat Lodge Leader Rejected

In Wills v. Reighard, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22575 (WD Mo., Oct. 5, 2005), a Missouri federal district court rejected a prisoner's free exercise and equal protection claims growing out of the prisoner's removal from a leadership position in the prison's Native American Sweat Lodge. Tensions had developed among inmates who participated in the prison's Native American Spiritual Group. Plaintiff was regarded as unqualified to serve as Lodge Leader because he was not Native American, was not an enrolled member of a tribe, listed his religious preference as Jewish, and was unfamiliar with the songs necessary to properly perform the Sweat Lodge ceremony. The court held that plaintiff had no constitutional right to hold a leadership position in the religious group. It also rejected plaintiff's racial discrimination claims.

Vatican Entitled To Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act Protection

A federal court in Kentucky on Thursday dealt a setback to victims of sexual abuse who are attempting to bring a class action against the Vatican claiming that it covered up sexual abuse by priests. The Associated Press yesterday reported on the details of Judge John G. Heyburn II's opinion. The court ruled that the Holy See is a foreign state and can be sued only under the strict requirements of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). That Act permits suits against foreign governments in limited circumstances. The lawsuit argues that the Holy See engaged in both commercial and harmful activity in the United States, both of which are grounds permitting a suit to be brought under the FSIA. In this case, however, the court ruled that initially the plaintiffs failed to strictly follow the service of process requirements of the FSIA. Instead of serving the Vatican Foreign Minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, plaintiffs served his boss, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. The court gave plaintiffs 60 more days to effect proper service of process.

DOE Withdraws Funding For Alaska Christian College

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Education withdrew around $450,000 of Congressionally earmarked funds from Alaska Christian College after a federal investigation found that the school has been spending the money on religious instruction. The Anchorage Daily News reported that a letter from the DOE's Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education said that the school failed to separate religious proselytizing from its avowed purpose of preparing rural Native students for college life. The ruling by the Department of Education came as part of a settlement of a lawsuit against it challenging the constitutionality of federal funding for the school. (See prior posting.)

"Love In Action" Claims Licensing Violates Its Free Exercise Rights

Friday's Washington Blade reports that Love In Action, a Memphis, Tennessee Christ-centered ministry that operates group homes offering treatment designed to turn gay people straight, has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Tennessee. The state wants the group to be licensed as a mental health supportive living facility if it has more than one mentally ill person in residence. Love In Action claims that it does not offer mental health care, but instead ministers from a Christian perspective. Its website says that it exists to help people align their behavior with their faith. The suit alleges that requiring the group to obtain a license would violate its rights to free speech and free exercise of religion. Love In Action is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund.

Ministerial Exception Applied To FMLA Claim

In Fassl v. Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22546 (ED Pa., Oct. 4, 2005), a Pennsylvania federal district court applied the “ministerial exception” to dismiss a claim by a church Music Director under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. The court held that the ministerial exception, required by the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, applies to all federal employment statutes, not just to Title VII and the ADA.