Texas School Removes "In God We Trust" From Coin On Yearbook

School officials sometimes take unusual steps to avoid First Amendment Establishment Clause problems. So it was in Keller, Texas this year according to today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Producers of the Liberty Elementary School 2005-06 yearbook decided to put an enlarged picture of a U.S. nickel on the yearbook's cover. The choice had some logic to it. This was Liberty Elementary's first year, and the new U.S. nickel has the word "Liberty" in its design. But then the school's principal and the PTA board concluded that having the nickel's "In God We Trust" motto prominently displayed "might create an issue with people of several religious faiths". But instead of finding another image for the cover, the school produced the yearbooks with a photo of the nickel that does not include the motto. Then, to further complicate matters, the school included with the yearbooks a sticker that families could use to restore "In God We Trust" to the coin on the book's cover.

Not surprisingly, the school has received some 300 e-mails complaining about the removal of the motto in the first place. Frank Manion, senior lawyer with evangelist Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice, commenting on the school's First Amendment concerns said, "I understand completely that there are areas of this that are nebulous. This isn't one of them." However a Dallas ACLU lawyers said he thought the school had made the correct decision.

San Diego Mayor Presses Feds On Mt. Soledad Cross

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders is is Washington this week pushing for the federal government to take over the Mt. Soledad Cross that a court has ordered removed from public property. (See prior posting.) The San Diego Union-Tribune today reported on the mayor's progress. White House officials have indicated that President Bush is "supportive in concept" with the proposal and "appreciates the importance of the monument". However lawyers from the White House counsel's office say there may be significant legal impediments to carrying out the idea.

Maharishi Plans "World Capital of Peace" In Kansas

USA Today reports today on plans by representatives of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to build a "World Capital of Peace"on over 1000 acres of land the group owns just outside Smith Center, Kansas. The Maharishi is the founder of the transcendental meditation movement. The Kansas location was chosen because it is near the center of the United States. The $15 million project will include a retreat center, buildings for training and meditating, and a broadcast center. Eric Michner, a spokesman for the group, said that 300 "meditators" will use the retreat facility to "create waves of coherence that will benefit everybody in society." The site's central location will allow those waves to spread across the USA, he says. Also affiliated with the Maharishi is the Natural Law Party which was founded in 1992. Its leader, John Hagelin, has run for president three times. Hagelin also heads the U.S. Peace Government that will be headquartered in the proposed World Capital of Peace.

Student Center OKd For Residential Area By Pennsylvania Court

In Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown v. Zoning Hearing Board, (Comwlth. Ct. Pa., May 19, 2006), a Pennsylvania appellate court held that a proposed Catholic Student Center at Penn State University should be classified for zoning purposes as a structure that will primarily be used as a place of worship, even though in addition to a chapel it will contain a student lounge, study rooms, a library, a kitchen and dining room, and housing for three monks and their guests. Places of worship may be built in areas zoned as residential, while student centers are not included as permissible uses. News coverage of the decision is in today's (central Pennsylvania) Centre Daily.

Wyoming Grant To Religious Group Questioned

The Wyoming Department of Family Services has awarded an $80,000 grant to Faith Initiatives of Wyoming, according to the Associated Press. The AP article questions whether the state funds are being used unconstitutionally for religious purposes. Wyoming Family Services Director Rodger McDaniel says the payments do not violate Wyoming's constitutional ban on support of religious institutions. Faith Initiatives is to use the state funds to help existing organizations provide community services in areas such as "strengthening families" and "at-risk youth." Faith Initiatives has also received $347,000 in federal faith-based funding. Some of the organizations that Faith Initiatives has helped with funding are religious pregnancy crisis centers.

Greek Jewish Community Wants Equal Recognition

The European Jewish Press reported yesterday that the Central Jewish Board of Greece is asking the Greek government to increase governmental support and recognition of the Jewish community. Moises Constantinis, president of the Board, wants the government pay the salaries of local rabbis just as it pays for Christian priests and Muslim Imams. He also wants the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Metropolite reduced. Currently its permission must be obtained for the building of new synagogues. There are 13 synagogues in Greece, but only 3 hold regular services.

Saudi Textbooks Still Assail Non-Muslims

Yesterday's Washington Post carries a story on the textbooks that have been used during the current academic year for Islamic studies in Saudi Arabian schools. Despite repeated Saudi claims that textbooks have been revised, a survey of actual textbooks by Freedom House shows numerous statements in them that promote intolerance toward non-Muslims. A first grade text includes the statement: "Every religion other than Islam is false." An eighth grade text includes: "The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."And an eleventh grade text says: "The greeting 'Peace be upon you' is specifically for believers. It cannot be said to others." The article contains twenty more textbook excerpts. Saudi Arabia distributes its religion texts worldwide to a number of Islamic schools operated by others. [Thanks to Sanford Levinson via Religionlaw for the lead.]

Report On Status Of Iran's Jewish Community

Today's Belfast Telegraph carries a feature on the status of the 20,000 members of the Jewish community who remain in Iran. Jews, Zoroastrians and Christians each have an elected representative in Iran's parliament. They may worship freely and are not bound by Muslim dietary restrictions. But non-Muslims may not proselytize. Synagogue attendance in Iran has gone up. This is attributed partly to the increased religious atmosphere generally fostered by the government, and in part to the need for the community to draw on its own resources. Iranian Jews say they suffer discrimination in obtaining government jobs; there is anti-Semitism in the government media; but Jews are not openly persecuted. Generally they have had to publicly renounce any connection to Israel or Zionism. And they are increasingly nervous about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statements denying the Holocaust.

Intelligent Design Judge Gives Commencement Address

Yesterday in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones gave the commencement address at his alma mater, Dickinson College. Jones, who last year wrote the Kitzmiller opinion striking down the teaching of intelligent design, used the opportunity to discuss the religious views of America's founders as shaped by the Enlightenment. The Associated Press quotes portions of his talk:

The founders believed that true religion was not something handed down by a church or contained in a Bible, but was to be found through free, rational inquiry.... They possessed a great confidence in an individual's ability to understand the world and its most fundamental laws through the exercise of his or her reason.... This core set of beliefs led the founders, who constantly engaged and questioned things, to secure their idea of religious freedom by barring any alliance between church and state.

Italian Official Supports Civil Unions and Liberalization of Assisted Fertility Law

In Italy, according to AKI, the government's new Minister for Family has taken on the Vatican. The minister, Rosy Bindi, is a practicing Catholic whose religion has been important in her political career. In a published interview yesterday, Bindi supported civil unions as well as changes to Italy's restrictive assisted fertility law. Her interview came only two days after Camillo Ruini, the head of the Italian Bishops' Conference, spoke in opposition to civil unions saying that only homosexuals were interested in the move because "heterosexual couples eventually end up getting married." Here is the interview in Italian from Corriere Della Sera.

Commentary: Looking For Establishment Clause Loopholes

John Marshall once famously wrote, "we must never forget that it is a constitution that we are expounding." (McCulloch v. Maryland). He meant, we must interpret the document not as we interpret a technical tax code, but as a repository of broad principles. Nevertheless, two items over the week end remind us that today lawyers seem to often be seeking technical loopholes instead of broad principles in looking at Establishment Clause jurisprudence.

First is the Russell County Kentucky case in which a federal district judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing Megan Chapman, who was elected graduation chaplain by her classmates, from giving her scheduled prayer at high school commencement ceremonies. Perhaps following an emphasis on technical loopholes in a legal memorandum circulated earlier this month by Liberty Counsel, at graduation during the principal's remarks, 200 graduates stood, and in unison recited the Lord's Prayer, to the thunderous applause of the audience. (Louisville Courier-Journal.)

The second development is an article in Saturday's Wall Street Journal [subscription required] which reports on the growing phenomenon of after-school religious clubs in elementary schools being run by the same teachers who teach students during the school day. Relying on a questionable 8th Circuit precedent, the practice has spread. Prodded on by their teachers, ten-year olds try to recruit fellow-students to attend. Permission slips they distribute tell parents that club can "improve memory skills, grades, attitudes, and behavior at home and school." John Blake, Durham executive director for the Child Evangelism Fellowship understands what is going on. He said, having teachers participate "boosts the number of children who enroll .... Kids just want to be there because their teacher's involved." One mother, who agreed reluctantly to let her daughter participate said her daughter was just reaffirming her faith. But she added, "if I wasn't Christian, if I was Jewish, I might be a little peeved about this."

First Clergy Admitted As Lawyers In India

Now that nuns and priests in India have won the right to become lawyers (see prior posting), the first ones have been admitted to the bar. According to Chennai Online, today two nuns and six priests were among the 300 new lawyers enrolled in Kerala as advocates.

Constitutionality of Eagle Protections To Be Argued In Federal Court

In U.S. federal district court in Jackson, Wyoming on Monday, oral arguments are scheduled in a case involving the constitutionality of federal restrictions on Native Americans taking bald eagles for religious purposes. The Jackson Hole Star Tribune reports that the Northern Arapaho tribe and defendant Winslow Friday (charged with shooting a bald eagle without Interior Department permission) claim that federal law places an undue restriction on their free exercise of religion. They argue that the population of eagles has increased to the point that now some could appropriately be taken for religious purposes. They say that the current system that forces tribes to rely on the National Eagle Repository for salvaged eagles imposes a lengthy delay and often furnishes eagles that are "unusable" for traditional ceremonies. Prosecutors say that since Friday never applied for a permit to hunt eagles, he cannot now assert that hunting restrictions infringe his rights.

Articles of Interest - Including New Symposia

From SSRN:

• Sara C. Galvan, Beyond Worship: The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 and Religious Institutions' Auxiliary Uses, Yale Law & Policy Review, Vol. 24, pp. 205-237 (2006).
• Michael M. O’Hear, Faith, Justice, and the Teaching of Criminal Procedure (May 2006)Marquette Law School Legal Studies Paper No. 06-23.

From bePress:

• Sean J. Young, The Rise and Fall of the Centrality Concern in Free Exercise Jurisprudence (May 2006). (Yale Law School Student Scholarship Series).
  

From SmartCILP:

• John P. Forren, Revisiting Four Popular Myths About the Peyote Case, 8 Univ. Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 209-253 (2006).
• Vol. 14, No. 1 of the William and Mary Bill of Rights Journal contains a large group of articles of interest. A group of essays comprise a mini-symposium on An Analysis of the Ten Commandments Cases. Contributors are Erwin Chemerinsky, William VanAlstyne, Jay Sekulow & Francis Manion, and Greg Abbott. Also in the issue is Robert G. Natelson, The Original Meaning of the Establishment Clause, 14 Wm. & Mary Bill of Rights. Jour. 73-140 (2005).

• Emory International Law Review, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Summer 2005) is an 850 page symposium on The Permissible Scope of Legal Limitations on the Freedom of Religion or Belief. It contains articles by 19 authors from around the world.
  

Appeal Filed In CLS Suit Against Hastings Law School

The Alliance Defense Fund announced that on Wednesday its attorneys and those from the Christian Legal Society Center for Law & Religious Freedom filed an appeal with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Christian Legal Society of University of California, Hastings College of the Law v. Kane. In April, the federal district court upheld the anti-discrimination rules applied by Hastings Law School to prohibit recognized student groups from discriminating on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. The Christian Legal Society was denied official recognition because it required its voting members and officers to hold Christian beliefs and avoid sexual activity that violates Christian doctrines.

Church Entanglement In Solution To Puerto Rico's Budget Crisis

Puerto Rican writer Mayra Montero has an op-ed column in today’s New York Times suggesting that the role of religious groups in settling Puerto Rico’s recent budget crisis was much greater than had generally been realized. While it had been reported that San Juan’s Catholic Archbishop Roberto González had been instrumental in getting a special commission formed to come up with a solution to the governmental crisis, Montero’s reporting suggests a much more pervasive religious influence in the matter. She says:

Serious debates over taxes, public spending and government bonds were held amid prayers and hymns. Although San Juan's Roman Catholic archbishop took part in the negotiations, the messianic tone of evangelical and Pentecostalist churches predominated. Each session began and ended with a "prayer circle." The speaker of the House told reporters that he was consulting with God about the budget. San Juan's mayor led a mystic march accompanied by a woman with a title like "director of spiritual affairs."

At the Capitol, legislators surrounded a singer of religious music, a "holy man" with miracle-working pretensions who walked around laying on hands. The governor himself joined his opponents to murmur praises, and he was "anointed" by the leaders of evangelical churches who wandered through the Capitol and the executive mansion, La Fortaleza, advising, instructing and eating snacks. If anyone complained about their presence, they threatened to put "100,000 Christians" inside the Capitol to apply pressure.

It worked: on Monday, public employees returned to work after a resolution was reached, though not without a mini-crisis last weekend that was once again resolved thanks to mediation by religious leaders, who declared their work a "great victory of Jehovah, king of kings."

Ms. Montero argues that the role of religious institutions in this crisis will give them undue influence on substantive issues that are likely to later come to the Puerto Rican legislature.

Death Penalty Survives Establishment Clause Challenge

In Hogan v. State, (May 15, 2006), the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a novel Establishment Clause challenge to the death penalty. Convicted murderer Kenneth Hogan argued that the effectiveness of capital punishment depends on the sectarian religious notion of a merit-based afterlife, such as heaven and hell, and thus unconstitutionally advances religion. The court, however, held that there are adequate secular punitive reasons for the death penalty, so that its primary purpose and effect are not to advance religion.

Prison Sex Offender Program Has Establishment Clause Problems

In Edmondson v. Curry, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30416 (D. NH, April 3, 2006), a federal Magistrate Judge in New Hampshire concluded that complaints of a New Hampshire State Prison inmate, William Edmondson, about the religious nature of the prison’s 12-step sex offender program (SOP) had merit, but that there was no need to issue an injunction since Edmondson was not currently in the program.

While public prayer is not a part of the SOP, inmates post a daily quote—often from a religious text-- in a public area for use by all the participants in the program. The judge concluded that “there is no substantive difference between posting a scriptural quote on a public board and hanging a crucifix on the wall.” He also found that the state, through its management of the program, was responsible for the quotes being posted. He found that the Establishment Clause was violated by subjecting inmates to quotes from a particular religious tradition as part of a state-run program.

Religious Minorities Concerned About Reported Iranian Sumptuary Law

A number of news outlets today, including Canada's National Post, UPI, the Jerusalem Post and YNet News , are reporting that Iran's Parliament has passed a National Uniform Law that obligates non-Muslims to wear specific colored ribbons or bands when they are in public. They say that Iranian expatriates have confirmed that the law has been enacted. However, another news source, 940 Montreal, says that the report is false, quoting independent reporter Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli Middle East expert who was born and raised in Tehran.

The reports on the law's passage say that Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must still approve it before it goes into effect. Under the law, Jews will have to wear yellow bands, Zoroastrians blue ones, while Christians will be required to wear red bands.

These provisions are part of a broader requirement in the law that all Iranians wear "standard Islamic garments" in order to remove ethnic and class distinctions. These Islamic uniforms will establish "visual equality" for Iranians as they prepare for the return of the Hidden Imam. The identifying ribbons for others are to then prevent Muslims from becoming najis (ritually unclean) by accidentally shaking the hands of non-Muslims in public.

These requirements, of course, remind many of similar mandates in Nazi Germany. Rabbi Marvin Heir, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said that Iran is getting "closer and closer to the Nazi ideology." He demanded that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan intervene immediately.

UPDATE: On Friday night and Saturday, information coming from Iranian diplomats, and from the Jewish community in Iran (including a Jewish member of parliament), suggests that the bill preliminarily passed by the Iranian parliament does not contain provisions regarding the wearing of distinctive colors by religious minorities. Piecing together the reports, it appears that a bill to promote an Iranian-Islamic style of dress for Muslim women was approved in preliminary form. Sponsors were mainly concerned with recent tendencies among Muslim women to move to light colored clothing during the hot summer months. Apparently there was some discussion in parliament of dress requirements for other religious groups, and language on the matter may have been in earlier drafts of the bill. However the language is not in the preliminary version of the bill that was adopted. (Globe & Mail, National Post, Debka).

California Supreme Court Rejects Claim that Jews Were Kept Off Capital Jury

In the case of In re Freeman, (Cal. Sup. Ct., May 16, 2006), the California Supreme Court rejected the petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Fred Freeman who had been sentenced to death for murder. Freeman claimed that Judge Stanley P. Golde, who presided over his trial, had secretly urged the prosecutor, John Quatman, to peremptorily challenge Jewish jurors in order to make it more likely that the jury would impose the death penalty, and that the prosecution exercised challenges on this basis. The referee that the Supreme Court appointed to hear evidence in the habeas case found that there was no factual basis for Freeman's claim, concluding that Quatman's testimony that the alleged improprieties occurred was not credible. (See related prior posting.) Yesterday's Contra Costa Times has more on the case.