Objective coverage of church-state and religious liberty developments, with extensive links to primary sources.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Iowa Ends State Funding For Faith-Based Prison Program
Recent Articles Of Interest
Yossi Nehushtan, Conscientious Exemptions: How They Should Be Granted and By Whom, (April 2007).
Michael A. Helfand, When Religious Practices Become Legal Obligations: Extending the Foreign Compulsion Defense, (Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 23, 2008).
From SmartCILP:
Book review colloquy on Religious Freedom and the Constitution, by Christopher L. Eisgruber and Lawrence G. Sager. Articles by Thomas C. Berg, Kent Greenawalt, Ira C. Lupu and Robert W. Tuttle; response by Christopher L. Eisgruber and Lawrence G. Sager, 85 Texas Law Review 1185-1287 (2007).
Company Must Pay Damages To Fired Muslim Employee
Spokane Diocese Exits Bankruptcy
En Banc Review Sought In 9th Circuit's Snowbowl Development Decision
Saturday, June 02, 2007
IRS Issues Guidance and Report On Church Political Activity
The IRS has also issued a report on its 2006 Political Compliance Initiative.
Christian Area In Indonesia Wants Bible-Based Law
En Banc Review Sought In 9th Circuit's Snowbowl Development Decision
Wall Street Journal Profiles Politically Powerful Iranian Shrine
The shrine has for centuries intermingled faith and money, collecting donations of cash, land, jewelry and works of art from the devout. Today, it is not only Iran's most sacred religious site but also, by some reckonings, the Islamic republic's biggest and richest business empire…. The dual role … helps explain how the power of Iran's aging clerical elite endures, nearly three decades after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Imam Reza Shrine is part of a cluster of bonyads, nominally charitable foundations with huge holdings…. They publish no accounts and, in most cases, answer only to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This status gives bonyads an independent authority outside Iran's formal state bureaucracy and checks the power of elected officials….
Challenge To Closing of NY Catholic Church Rejected
Friday, June 01, 2007
Text of Lina Joy Dissent Available
Surgeon General Nominee Criticized For Votes On Church Council
IRS Questions Political Activities of Wichita Church
U.S. Magistrate Is New Head of Catholic Bishops' Review Board
In Baghdad, Islamists Impose Dress Code and Taxes On Non-Muslims
The Journal also reports that last month in Baghdad, al-Qaeda moved into the predominantly Assyrian Dora neighborhood and demanded payment of the jizya, the tax that the Quran says all Christians and Jews must pay. Those who did not pay were told to give a daughter or sister in marriage to a Muslim.