Objective coverage of church-state and religious liberty developments, with extensive links to primary sources.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
First Clergy Admitted As Lawyers In India
Constitutionality of Eagle Protections To Be Argued In Federal Court
Articles of Interest - Including New Symposia
- 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.
- Sean J. Young, The Rise and Fall of the Centrality Concern in Free Exercise Jurisprudence (May 2006). (Yale Law School Student Scholarship Series).
- 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.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Appeal Filed In CLS Suit Against Hastings Law School
Church Entanglement In Solution To Puerto Rico's Budget Crisis
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."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.
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."
Death Penalty Survives Establishment Clause Challenge
Prison Sex Offender Program Has Establishment Clause Problems
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.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Religious Minorities Concerned About Reported Iranian Sumptuary Law
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
Louisiana House Defeats Anti-Discrimination Bill
Four Charged With Using Religious Schools To Steal State Voucher Funds
Vatican Speaks Out On Religious Freedom And Proselytization
Freedom of religion is a fundamental, inviolable and non-negotiable right of every human being in every country in the world. Freedom of religion connotes the freedom, without any obstruction, to practice one’s own faith, freedom to propagate the teachings of one’s faith to people of one’s own and other faiths, and also the freedom to embrace another faith out of one’s own free choice.Meanwhile, in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI spoke twice this week on the importance of religious freedom in countries with non-Christian majorities. (Reuters report.) On Monday, speaking to the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travelers, he urged Muslim countries to grant Christian minorities the same rights as Muslims have in Western nations. (Zenit report.) He said that Christians in Muslim nations should be able to speak openly about their religion.
We affirm that while everyone has a right to invite others to an understanding of their faith, it should not be exercised by violating other’s rights and religious sensibilities. At the same time, all should heal themselves from the obsession of converting others.
Freedom of religion enjoins upon all of us the equally non-negotiable responsibility to respect faiths other than our own, and never to denigrate, vilify or misrepresent them for the purpose of affirming superiority of our faith.
On Thursday, the Pope told India's new ambassador to the Vatican that the efforts by Hindu nationalists in some Indian states to ban conversions were unconstitutional and "contrary to the highest ideals of India's founding fathers." (Full text of statement.) His objections, and others, seem to have had an effect. BBC News and Daily India report today that the governor of the Indian state of Rajasthan, citing religious freedom concerns, has refused to sign a bill passed by the state assembly that would have prohibited religious conversions impelled by fraud, force or allurement. (See prior posting.)
Senate Committee Passes "Marriage Protection Amendment"
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Memorial Day 2006-- Is It A Religious Holiday?
As with other aspects of our civic culture, such as the Pledge of Allegiance, the struggle against "godless Communism" in the 1950's led the U.S. Congress to stress the role of religion in national ceremonies. That more recent aspect of Memorial Day is reflected in the 2006 Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day Proclamation that President Bush issued at the White House on Tuesday. It provides in part:
Those who lost their lives in the defense of freedom helped protect our citizens and lay the foundation of peace for people everywhere. On Memorial Day, a grateful Nation pays tribute to their personal courage, love of country, and dedication to duty.
In respect for their devotion to America, the Congress, by a joint resolution approved on May 11, 1950, as amended (64 Stat. 158), has requested the President to issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe each Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace and designating a period on that day when the people of the United States might unite in prayer. The Congress, by Public Law 106-579, has also designated the minute beginning at 3:00 p.m. local time on that day as a time for all Americans to observe the National Moment of Remembrance.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Memorial Day, May 29, 2006, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I designate the hour beginning in each locality at 11:00 a.m. of that day as a time to unite in prayer. I also ask all Americans to observe the National Moment of Remembrance beginning at 3 p.m., local time, on Memorial Day.
Native American Couple Seek Damages For Wrongful Peyote Enforcement
Court Refuses To Order Amendment In Baptismal Certificate
Illinois Governor Signs Bill To Bar Funeral Protests
Shirley Phelps-Roper, attorney for the Westboro Baptist Church said that despite the law, pickets would be at the Illinois funeral of Afghanistan veteran Christopher Donaldson on Friday. Defiantly, she said, "The law is impotent. You've done nothing to change that God is killing your children and sending them home from battle. Keep your big, fat snout out of our religion."
Prisoner Free Exercise Claims Move Ahead
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Florida Synagogue Can Move Ahead With Discrimination Claims
The court held that the synagogue had sufficiently shown a practice of harassment and selective enforcement against the Synagogue through checking daily for code violations and ticketing only cars parked on the synagogue's side of the street. The court dismissed the synagogue's claim under the federal RLUIPA and Florida's RFRA that a substantial burden was placed on its religious exercise by the city's denial of a Special Exception under its zoning laws, but permitted the synagogue to proceed with its discrimination claim under RLUIPA, as well as its equal protection, due process and promissory estoppel claims. It also permitted it to move ahead on its claim that City's Zoning and Land Development Regulations fail to provide objective criteria to measure zoning decisions made by the Commission.
Turkish High Court Judges Shot In Religiously Motivated Attack
UPDATE: On Thursday, more than 15,000 Turks, including students and judges dressed in their robes, marched in Ankara to support secularism and to condemn the shooting of Council of State judges. (AP report.)