Move In Indian State To Repeal Anti-Conversion Law

Countering moves in the opposite direction elsewhere in the country, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, a bill to repeal the Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Act, 2002, was introduced by the state's Law Minister. The development is reported today by The Hindu News.

UPDATE: On May 31, Outlook India reported that the repeal bill was passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly.

Iranian Religious Police Enforce Islamic Dress Code

In Iran last week, Tehran police chief, Morteza Talaei, reported for the first time on the work of the Police Guidance Patrols (religious police) in the Iranian capital. AsiaNews.it reports on the efforts of the new patrols to stop long-standing resistance against the country's Islamic dress code. Talaei said that 7,000 shops have been visited, and 190 were fined for selling non-Islamic clothing and other goods. Also 230 autos were confiscated because women in them were not fully veiled. Also a number of pedestrians-- 119 women and 45 men-- were arrested for violating the dress restrictions.

Two USCIRF Members Reappointed

Preeta D. Bansal and Elizabeth H. Prodromou have been reappointed by Congressional leaders to two-year terms on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, according to a USCIRF release last week. Three Commissioners are selected by the President, two by the President's party in Congress, and four by congressional leaders of the minority party. Bansal, a constitutional lawyer and former chair of the Commission, was appointed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Prodromou, Associate Director of the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs and Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University, was appointed by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Trinidad Court Finds "Trinity Cross" Award Discriminatory

The Trinidad & Tobago Express reports on a fascinating opinion issued Friday by the High Court of Justice in Trinidad and Tobago. The decision found that the creation and continued existence of the Trinity Cross as the nation’s highest award amounts to indirect discrimination against Hindus and Muslims. Justice Peter Jamadar wrote that in light of Trinidad & Tobago’s history, the words "Trinity" and "cross" are understood as referring to the blessed trinity and the Christian religion. However, the court dismissed the case without granting relief because the country’s 1976 Constitution has in it a savings clause providing that nothing in the Constitution’s declaration of rights and freedoms shall invalidate legislation existing at the time the Constitution was adopted. So while the Court refused to order the government to create a new symbol to replace the Trinity Cross, Justice Jamadar urged the government to engage in public consultation to consider removing all religious symbolism in the design and naming of national awards.

As debate rages in the United States about the impact of foreign law on the development of U.S. constitutional doctrines, one might wonder whether this case portends a challenge to the U.S. Army’s second highest award, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the comparable Navy Cross and Air Force Cross.

Court Refuses To Dismiss Conspiracy Claims By Anti-Gay Christian Group

In Startzell v. City of Philadelphia, (ED Pa., May 26, 2006), a Pennsylvania federal district court denied a motion to dismiss conspiracy claims in a federal civil rights suit brought by members of Repent America, a Christian evangelical group, against Philly Pride, the organizers of OutFest, a festival designed to celebrate participants' homosexuality. The court found that plaintiffs (who have become known as the "Philadelphia Eleven") adequately alleged claims under 42 USC 1985(3), the federal statute that prohibits conspiracy to deprive any person of equal protection of the laws, as well as claims of conspiracy in violation of 42 USC 1983.

The Philadelphia Eleven claimed that Philly Pride conspired with the city of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia police to prevent them from speaking and carrying signs opposing homosexuality. (Full text of complaint.) Their Christian message was blocked by a private security force known as the Pink Angels who blocked plaintiffs' access to OutFest, shouted so their message could not be heard, and held up pink Styrofoam boards to prevent others from seeing plaintiffs' signs.

In upholding the claim under 42 USC 1985(3), the court found plaintiffs had sufficiently alleged that Philly Pride held a discriminatory animus against them as Christians, and not just against their anti-homosexual viewpoints. The court also held that religious groups are a protected class under Section 1985(3) so that discrimination against them can be labeled "invidious". Repent America has issued a press release welcoming the decision, and WorldNetDaily reports on it, pointing out that further proceedings will be necessary for the court to deterine if the alleged conspiracy in fact existed.

New Books, Journals and Articles

New Books:

• Charles C. Haynes, Sam Chaltain and Susan Glisson, First Freedoms: A Documentary History of First Amendment Rights in America, (Oxford University Press, July 2006). The book is reviewed by the First Amendment Center.
• Nazila Ghanea-Hercock, Alan Stephens & Raphael Walden, Does God Believe in Human Rights?, (Martinus Nijhoff, Nov. 2006).

New Journal:

• Religion & Human Rights (Martinus Nijhoff, 2006: Volume 1)

Articles from SSRN

• Brian Leiter, Why Tolerate Religion?, (May 25, 2006).

Articles from bePress:

• Gregory A. Kalscheur S.J., Christian Scripture and American Scripture: An Instructive Analogy?, (to appear in Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 21).

Law Review Articles (via SmartCILP):

• Cynthia V. Ward, Coercion and Choice Under the Establishment Clause, 39 University of California Davis Law Review 1621-1668 (2006).
• Nakul Krishnakumar & Heath Lynch, Tenth Annual National Juvenile Moot Court Competition Winning Brief, 5 Whittier Journal of Child & Family Advocacy 277-300 (2005).

California House Passes Housing Discrimination Bill

On Thursday, the California Assembly, by a bipartisan vote of 48-31, passed and sent on to the Senate, the Civil Rights Housing Act of 2006 (AB 2800). The bill strengthens and standardizes 17 housing discrimination provisions in California law. The bill prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, as well as on the basis of a number of other characteristics, according to a press release issued Saturday by Equality California.

Religious Broadcaster Wins Again In Attempt To Buy TV Station

Last July, a California appellate court invalidated a decision by Coast Community College District, which was selling off its Public Television Station, to reject a high bid from the religious Daystar Television Network. The religious broadcaster's bid was rejected in favor of a lower bid from the KOCE Foundation that would keep the station as part of the PBS system. Upon the petition of both parties, the court granted a rehearing, and on Thursday reached the same result that it had before, but for different legal reasons. In Word of God Fellowship, Inc. v. Coast Community College District, (Cal. 4th App. Dist., May 25, 2006), the court found that it was improper for Coast Community College to materially amend a public contract in favor of a private bidder after the bidding is closed and the contract was awarded.

In reporting on the decision today, the Los Angeles Times points out that Coast Community College is also defending a second lawsuit seeking $20 to $30 million in damages brought by Daystar, alleging that the district and board trustees violated Constitutional freedom of religion protections when it refused to sell the station to the Christian broadcaster. Richard Sherman, the attorney for Daystar, said that Daystar would be more willing to settle the second suit if the district offers the station for sale again.

Senate Passes Bill To Honor Dalai Lama With Medal

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent passed S. 2784 calling for the award of a Congressional gold medal to the 14th Dalai Lama in recognition of his contributions to peace, non-violence, human rights, and religious understanding. The bill had broad bipartisan support, with 73 co-sponsors. An identical bill, H.R. 4562, is pending in the House of Representatives. A release on the bill from Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office, one of the bill’s primary sponsors, points out that under Congressional rules, Congressional Gold Medals require the support of at least two-thirds of the Members of both the Senate and House before they can be signed into law by the President.

Scholarly Papers On Gay Marriage And Religious Liberty

Earlier this month, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty posted online seven papers from a private conference it hosed last December titled "Scholars’ Conference on Same Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty". An Associated Press report today summarized the findings of those papers: "If gay marriage becomes recognized under law across the country, religious groups could face challenges to customary ways of doing business, even to their finances."

Maryland Uses Economic Development Funds For Church Convention

Today’s Baltimore Sun reports on a provision in Maryland’s state budget bill enacted last month that provides a $150,000 grant to support a religious conference that will attract as many as 50,000 visitors to the state. On June 19-23, the National Baptist Convention plans to hold its Congress of Christian Education in Baltimore. Supporters of state funding say that the convention will bring tourism and economic activity to Maryland. The state grant will cover transporting convention attendees from hotels to the Baltimore Convention Center. It supplements $297,500 approved by Baltimore City Council for transportation and venue fees. The legislature stipulated that the state grant was contingent on review by the state attorney general. This week, Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. issued an opinion concluding that the state could provide the grant funds without violating the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

Not everyone agrees that the conference with the theme “The Heavenly Vision: The Message of the Church" can appropriately be funded by the state. Montgomery County Delegate Richard S. Madaleno Jr. said "This is clearly a religious conference that is all about furthering the goals and the mission of one particular denomination. Which they are so welcome to do - but not at the taxpayers' expense." Americans United for Separation of Church and State has issued a statement opposing state funding. Pointing to a planned conference on the challenge to the Baptist faith by cults, AU executive director Rev. Barry W. Lynn told a Baltimore Sun reporter that the state clearly cannot subsidize attacks by one religious group on another.

City Issues Tax-Free Bonds To Finance Church Expansion

A decision earlier this month by the Clarksville Indiana Town Council raises an interesting church-state issue. The Terre Haute Tribune Star yesterday reported that the town agreed to issue $1.5 million in tax-free economic development bonds to finance the expansion of the First Southern Baptist Church of Clarksville. The bonds will finance part of the $2.5 million cost of the church's new Family Life Center that will contain a kitchen, an office suite, educational space and a gymnasium. The Center will not be used for worship services. The town's Economic Development Commission concluded that the new building, which can be utilized by the entire community, will benefit the economy by creating jobs and providing space for community outreach programs.

Special provisions in the Internal Revenue Code permit states and cities to issue bonds that offer tax-exempt interest to investors where the borrowings are used to finance property owned by a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. (For details, see IRS Publication 4077.) The arrangement does not involve using local tax monies for building of the new facility. Instead, the city borrows money from investors, contributes those funds to the construction of the building, and repays investors through payments from the church to the city made over the life of the building.

11th Circuit "Punts" On Textbook Evolution Sticker Case

In the notorious Cobb County, Georgia evolution textbook sticker case, yesterday the 11th Circuit punted. The decision is Selman v. Cobb County School District, (11th Cir., May 25, 2006). In 2001, the Cobb County, Georgia school board ordered stickers placed on their new biology textbooks that contained 101 pages on evolutionary theory. The stickers read: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered." A lower court upheld an Establishment Clause challenge (as well as a challenge under the Georgia constitution) and ordered the stickers removed. Now the Court of Appeals has remanded the case for the trial court to hear more evidence and enter new findings so that the Court of Appeals can review "the important constitutional issues" raised by the case.

The trial court's decision handed down last year applied the three-pronged Lemon test to conclude that the school board had acted unconstitutionally. It held that the school board had legitimate secular purposes in adopting the sticker: encouraging students to think critically, and reducing offense to students and parents whose beliefs may conflict with the teaching of evolution. However, the court found that the second prong of the Lemon test doomed the stickers. The school board's actions had the primary effect of advancing religion.

Here is the sentence supporting the conclusion on "effect" that particularly troubled the Court of Appeals: "in light of the sequence of events that led to the Sticker's adoption, the Sticker communicates to those who endorse evolution that they are political outsiders, while the Sticker communicates to the Christian fundamentalists and creationists who pushed for a disclaimer that they are political insiders." The key events were a letter and petition from individuals opposing evolution on religious grounds and pressuring the school board to adopt stickers and other measures to dilute the teaching of evolution. However the trial court record was unclear on whether these key documents in fact were submitted to the board before it made its decision on the stickers, and it does not appear that the key documents were in fact formally entered into evidence at trial.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution yesterday reported that both sides claim to be pleased with the decision. [Thanks to How Appealing via Blog From the Capital for the link to the case.]

Another Indian State Considering Anti-Conversion Law

In India, the state of Chattisgarh this summer may become the eighth Indian state to adopt an anti-conversion bill, according to AsiaNews today. Introduced in the State Assembly at the request of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the bill would require a person wishing to change religion to inform a district magistrate one month in advance. The bill would also prohibit forcible conversion of others. The penalty for violating the law would be a fine of 50,000 to 100,000 rupees and imprisonment up to five years.

Suit Challenges Church's Attempt To Reform Sinners

Today's Dallas (Texas) Morning News reports on a fascinating suit winding it way through Texas state courts. Two individuals, identified only as John Doe and Jane Roe, told the pastor of Dallas' Watermark Community Church about certain sins they had committed, thinking the conversation was confidential. However church officials began a process of "care and correction" that they say is outlined in the Biblical book of Matthew. The process involves confronting the person one to one, and then increasingly going more public with the person's behavior until the person changes his or her conduct. Here Doe refused the private interventions and resigned from the church, but Watermark's bylaws say a member "may not resign from membership in an attempt to avoid such care and correction." As the church was about to send more than a dozen letters to people inside and outside the church who know "John Doe", Doe filed suit for an injunction to prevent the release of private information. At first the court granted a temporary restraining order, but it was dissolved when the church argued that the TRO violated its free exercise rights. Now the case is on appeal.

Indonesia Drops Plan To Remove Religion From ID Cards

Today's Jakarta Post reports that earlier this month, an official of the Indonesian Home Ministry said that consideration was being given to dropping religious identification from the country's national identity cards. Opposition to the move, however, has caused the plan to be shelved at least temporarily. Indonesia recognizes only six religions: Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Others must choose one of these six faiths if they want a valid ID card. Human rights groups have long criticized this requirement as discriminatory.

Home School Official Fears U.N. Convention

LifeSiteNews yesterday reported on a creative legal spectre newly focused upon by the Home School Legal Defense Association. HSLDA Chairman and General Counsel, Michael Farris, warns that "activist judges" may find that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the U.S. has never ratified, is binding nevertheless on the U.S. as customary international law. If that were to happen, he claims, a court might find that the Convention undercuts a parent's right to control the religious education of his children.

Pointing to a in 1995 determination, apparently by the UN's Committee on the Rights of the Child, in which "the United Kingdom was deemed out of compliance" with the Convention "because it allowed parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes without consulting the child", Farris says that, "by the same reasoning, parents would be denied the ability to homeschool their children unless the government first talked with their children and the government decided what was best." Farris suggests that Congress should act by defining customary international law, or by amending the Constitution to protect parental rights or clearly provide that international agreements do not supersede the Constitution.

German Chancellor Wants Religious References In EU Constitution

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged that there should be a reference to God and Christianity in the European Union Constitution, according to a report by EUobserver today. Spain, Italy and Poland had previously taken a similar position on the Constitution that is now on hold after it was rejected by France and Netherlands in referenda last year. Merkel's remarks came as she was about to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan today, and as tomorrow European leaders meet in Austria to discuss the next moves that should be taken on the EU Constitution.

Religious Accommodation Claim Against New York Transit Authority Rejected

In Bowles v. New York City Transit Authority, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 32914 (SDNY, May 23, 2006), a New York federal district court rejected Title VII, state law, and First Amendment claims by an ordained minister in Fellowship Tabernacle of Christ who was employed as a subway cleaner by the New York Transit system. The court found that plaintiff Warren Bowles had failed to prove the required elements of his claim that NYCTA had failed to accommodate his religious need to abstain from Sunday work. In fact, NYCTA did grant an accommodation after some delay. The court also rejected Bowles' claim that NYCTA had retaliated against him for filing suit to obtain religious accommodation.

Third Circuit Narrows Ministerial Exception In Title VII Cases

Yesterday in Petruska v. Gannon University, (3d Cir., May 24, 2006), the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals expanded the ability of ministerial employees to bring Title VII employment discrimination cases against churches and religious institutions that employ them. In this case, Lynette Petruska, the first female chaplain at Gannon University, a diocesan college, claimed that she was demoted solely because she was a woman. The Court rejected the defendants' claims that the suit should be dismissed under the "ministerial exception" doctrine. It held that the First Amendment exempts religious institutions from Title VII when gender or other illegal discrimination is based on religious belief, religious doctrine or internal church regulations. But if a church discriminates for reasons unrelated to religion, the Constitution does not foreclose a Title VII suit. The court said, "we decline to turn the Free Exercise Clause into a license for the free exercise of discrimination unmoored from religious principle." Judge Smith dissented on this issue.

In holding as it did, the majority disagreed with six other circuits that have found the ministerial exception to be broader. Inside Higher Ed today reports on the case. [Thanks to Eugene Volokh via Religionlaw listserv for the lead.]