Prisoner Free Exercise Decisions

In Scible v. Miller, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51002 (ND WV, July 25, 2006), a West Virginia federal court rejected a Rastafarian prisoner's complaint that prison grooming policies requiring hem to cut his hair violated his rights to free exercise of religion.

In Davis v. Basting, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50787 (WD KY, July 19, 2006), a Kentucky federal district court permitted a prisoner to move ahead with his claims that he should be permitted to receive a Halal diet and attend religious services and his claims of retaliation against him because of his religion.

Debate In Evangelical Movement Over Political Ties

A front-page New York Times article today profiles Rev. Gregory A. Boyd who leads a 4000-member megachurch in suburban St. Paul, Minnesota. Boyd has created a stir among his members and others by urging the church to get out of politics, stop moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming he United States is a "Christian nation" and stop glorifying U.S. military actions. The Times says that this is "an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. A common concern is that the Christian message is being compromised by the tendency to tie evangelical Christianity to the Republican Party and American nationalism, especially through the war in Iraq."

Chicago Area Church Challenges Zoning Exclusions

Waukegan, Illinois officials, apparently as part of an urban revitalization effort, have begun to enforce city zoning laws that prohibit places of worship and religious organizations in areas zoned for business. Last Monday, God's Hand Extended Mercy Mission filed suit against the city in federal court seeking a declaration that this exclusion of religious groups violates the Constitution's free exercise and equal protection clauses. Suburban Chicago News reports that on Wednesday attorneys for both sides agreed to discuss other possible sites for the Mission that has operated in its current location for at least 18 years. The court is expected to issue an order suspending penalties against the Mission for 30 days while negotiations are going on, even though the city has already issued a formal order requiring the Mission to relocate by July 21.

UPDATE: Here is a copy of the court's order prohibiting enforcement of the zoning ordinance for 30 days, from Alliance Defense Fund.

Religious Liberty In Asia, Europe Surveyed; Turkey Revises Teachers' Training

Zenit continues to publish excerpts from the report by Aid to the Church In Need on religious freedom around the world. The latest installments cover Asia (1, 2, 3) and Europe (1, 2). (Also see prior postings 1, 2).

The complexities in parts of Europe are illustrated by a story out of Turkey earlier this week reported by AKI. Turkey's secular Higher Board of Education (YOK), which previously moved the training of public school religious teachers from the theology to education departments of universities, has now announced plans for curriculum revision. University programs training teachers to offer courses in religion in Turkey's primary schools will focus less on Islam. A number of courses on Islam have been removed and the time spent on Arabic language instruction has been reduced. In their place, required courses in philosophy, sociology, music, computers, Christianity and missionary activities have been added. Turkey's union of teachers has strongly criticized the changes.

Anti-Conversion Laws In India

Anti-conversion laws are not new in various states in India. (See prior posting.) But recently they have again captured the attention particularly of Christians around the world. For a while, Indian states seemed to be moving to reject or repeal these laws (see prior postings 1, 2 ). But last week, the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly amended its Freedom of Religion Act of 1968 that prevents religious conversions by force or inducement. The new law requires all parties involved in a proposed conversion to inform a magistrate one month in advance. The conversion will be permitted only if the magistrate, after investigation, is satisfied that the conversion is not under duress or by deceit.(AsiaNews.it; India News). London's Sunday Times today personalizes the impact of the new law, focusing on Christian missionaries who have been working with Dalits (untouchables) who feel that their traditional Hindu religion has treated them unfairly. It suggests that at most the problem is some missionaries who tell Indians that God will heal their illnesses. The archbishop of Bhopal seems to be one of the few Christian authorities who is not upset by the new law. (Inida eNews.) [REVISED]

Members of the U.S. Congress have also begun to take notice. On July 21, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus held a briefing on Anti-Conversion Legislation in India. One of the presenters (full text) was the The Becket Fund's Angela Wu.

Free Exercise Challenge Planned In Ban On Feeding Homeless In Parks

According to Reuters yesterday, the ACLU of Florida may challenge on behalf of religious organizations a new Orlando ordinance that prohibits the regular feeding of homeless people in downtown parks. Passed earlier this week, the new law is attempting to protect an area of downtown that is undergoing renewal with the construction of condos, office buildings and university campus buildings. The city, however, has set aside other nearby space for food programs. Howard Simon, director of the Florida ACLU said that the new law interferes with religious groups' fulfilling their mission of feeding the homeless. Before filing suit, the ACLU is organizing a coalition of churches to attempt to negotiate a settlement with the city.

Times Tells Of Incidents Behind Delaware School District Lawsuit

Earlier this month, Religion Clause reported on the continuing controversy in the Indian River, Delaware School District over school prayer and the promotion of Christianity in the school system. (See prior posting.) Today’s New York Times carries an excellent article on the exact events that led the Dobrich family—which has now moved out of the district—to file suit in 2004. At Samantha Dobrich’s high school graduation, a minister's prayer proclaimed Jesus as the only way to truth. Samantha's mother, Mona Dobrich, then asked the school board to consider more inclusive prayers for graduation. That led to letters to the editors and school board meetings attended by hundreds carrying signs praising Jesus. A radio talk show host said that people were asking the Dobrich's to "Stop interfering with our traditions, stop interfering with our faith and leave our country the way we knew it to be." Dobrich’s son, Alex, was ridiculed for wearing a yarmulke in school. A classmate drew a picture of a pathway to heaven for everyone except "Alex the Jew". At a school board meeting, one speaker from the community said, "If you want people to stop calling [Alex] 'Jew boy', you tell him to give his heart to Jesus."

Ohio Issues New, Less Onerous, Draft Of Charity Reporting Rules

After input from many charitable organizations, Ohio’s Attorney General Jim Petro announced the filing of a second draft of proposed rules for charitable organizations that back off of many of the provisions that would have pressed larger charities to adopt specific "best practices" provisions that were in the Attorney General’s earlier proposal. (See prior posting.) The new draft would create a 9-member Charitable Advisory Council to recommend to the Attorney General model policies, training and education programs related to the fiduciary responsibilities of Ohio’s charities. As to fiduciary standards, the new draft merely calls for the collection of additional information in charities’ annual reports to the Attorney General. That additional information relates to compensation, conflicts of interest and loans to executives. Also additional data on billing and debt collection policies by charitable hospitals and nursing homes would be called for. Finally, charities would be permitted to file their IRS Form 990 instead of the new report called for the Ohio’s rules. However, the Attorney General suggested that charities filing Ohio’s form instead of their 990 "will find that they improve public and donor confidence." [Thanks to Ohio Jewish Communities Friday Report for the information.]

$36M Charitable Trust Not Available To Diocese Creditors In Bankruptcy

In In re Roman Catholic Archbishop of Portland in Oregon, (Bkrptcy. Ct. D. OR, July 20, 2006), an Oregon Bankruptcy judge held that the Diocese’ Perpetual Endowment Fund is a valid charitable trust and is not part of the assets that can be reached by Diocese creditors in its bankruptcy proceeding. The $36 million fund religious, educational and charitable programs, as well as operating expenses of the Diocese Chancery Office. Yesterday’s Portland Catholic Sentinel carried an article about the court decision.

Courts Rule On Employment Claims Against Churches

Two decisions involving the appropriateness of courts adjudicating employment claims against churches have been handed down this week.

In Redhead v. Conference of Seventh Day Adventists, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51135 (ED NY, July 26, 2006), a New York federal district court held that the "ministerial exception" to Title VII employment discrimination claims does not apply to a teacher in a Seventh Day Adventist elementary school whose duties were primarily secular. The teacher's only religious functions were one hour of Bible instruction per day and attending religious services with students once per year.

A Texas state court of appeals has granted a motion for a rehearing and issued a new opinion in Patton v. Jones, (Tex. 3d Dist. Ct. App., July 28, 2006). In its earlier decision, the court held that the Free Exercise clause prohibited it from proceeding in connection with alleged defamatory communications made by a Church as part of its decision to end the employment of its Director of Youth Ministries. However, the court permitted the Director to proceed with defamation claims that arose out of statements made about him after the Church's decision on his dismissal was final. The revised opinion issued this week also dismisses the claims growing out of the post-termination statements.

China Denies Falun Gong Persecution Stories

Earlier this week, according to Thursday's Shanghai Daily, the Chinese embassy in Canada issued a statement denying allegations that China was killing and harvesting organs for transplant from Falun Gong practitioners. (See prior posting). The Chinese said that an independent investigation by journalists and diplomats, including U.S. embassy personnel, had proven the allegations to be false.

The embassy’s statement said: "Falun Gong is an anti-science, anti-humanity and anti-society evil cult which has been banned in China in accordance with law. It uses religion … as camouflage to brainwash and control the practitioners. It preaches that human can, through psychological meditation, from invisible magic wheels inside their bodies, cure their illness without medical treatment. It spreads Dooms Day theory, [and] boasts that Li Hongzhi, founder of Falun Gong, is the most powerful God …."

Orthodox Church Opposes Liberalization Of Ukraine's Religion Law

The Union of Councils For Jews in the Former Soviet Union posted a news story today reporting that the usually feuding Kiev and Moscow Patriarchates of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Ukraine are at least temporarily united to oppose liberalization of Ukraine's law on religious registration. Currently a religious organization needs at least 10 members to obtain registration. A proposal would reduce this to 3 members. both branches of the Orthodox church also want their faith classified as "traditional" and therefore entitled to special governmental treatment.

Igumen Evstraty of the Kiev Patriarchate said that the country's current law is so liberal that: "[I]t's enough to gather ten people and announce whatever you want-even that they want to worship Winnie the Pooh-and they can't be denied registration." A spokesman for the Moscow Patriarchate even called for "non-traditional" faiths to be investigated to determine "whether they cut the throats of babies or exert pressure on the psyches of people." However, a government Department of Religious Affairs official said that every religion has the right to exist and that registration requirements should be the same for all groups.

9th Circuit Hears Arguments In High School Christian Bible Club Case

There have been a number of cases around the country involving attempts by Christian groups on college campuses to be recognized even though they exclude non-Christians from formal membership. Yesterday, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle heard arguments in a similar case involving a high school Bible group. At Kentridge High School near Seattle, for official membership and voting rights in the "Truth and Bible" club, students are required to sign a statement affirming "the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God." Kentridge's Associated Student Body, applying the school's non-discrimination policy, refused to recognize the group, which means that, while it can meet on campus, it cannot engage in fundraising there, be featured in the yearbook or advertise as broadly as recognized groups. Represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, the student group argued that its rights to free speech, free association and equal access are being violated.

Belarus Dispute Over Taking Church For Economic Development

It is not only in the United States that courts are dealing with issue of municipalities using eminent domain to take private property, including church property, for economic development. Forum18 reports on a similar issue in Belarus. On July 21, the Minsk City Economic Court ruled that New Life Church must sell - at a low price - a cow shed that it remodeled to use as a house of worship. Officials say that the city of Minsk's Development Plan requires that the building be demolished. New Life has been unable to obtain official registration of its building under the country's Religion Law because itneverr got formal approval to convert the cow shed into a church.

When Do Online Security Precautions Violate First Amendment?

A column in yesterday's St. Petersburg (FL) Times discusses a pending federal lawsuit against the Hillsborough County School Board that raises interesting First Amendment questions about e-mail campaigns by religious, and other, organizations. During a dispute last year over religious holidays in the public schools, the Florida Family Association set up a Web site for users to e-mail the School Board in favor of keeping Christmas in the schools. When numerous e-mails started arriving from the same Internet address, the School Board set its computers to reject them, fearing a possible automated e-mail attack on its server. It took a day and a half to determine the e-mails were legitimate and to remove the block. However, FFA's attorney, Don Conwell, argues that the number of e-mails being received were too small to cause a legitimate fear of a denial-of-use attack. He says that blocking communication from one particular group of citizens, based on who they are or on the content of their message, violates the rights of free speech, assembly and petition. Once the government accepts e-mail from some citizens, he says, then it cannot pick and choose. It cannot say, "You can e-mail us only if you don't belong to Group X."

Nun Loses In Seeking Canadian Refuge Under Legal Technicality

In Canada, a Nigerian nun who claims that she will suffer religious persecution if she is returned home has come up with an interesting legal maneuver to obtain refugee status. Yesterday's Canadian Press reports that Sister Nkemhurunaya Juliana Eligwe has been helping people of the Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation, on the shore of Lake Manitoba, for more than two years. After immigration officials rejected her asylum request, the Ojibways made her an honorary member of their band. Then she claimed that she is protected under Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that provides that "every person registered as an Indian under the Indian Act has the right to enter into and remain in Canada." However, on July 19, Federal Court Judge Sean Harrington refused to block her deportation. While his decision rested on various procedural issues, he wrote: "The proposition put forward, if brought to its extreme, is that each and every band . . . has the power to usurp the discretion of the minister of citizenship and immigration by accepting non-residents as band members and thereby granting them permanent resident status." The case is Sandy Bay Ojibway First Nation v. Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, 2006 FC 903 (Fed. Ct., July 19, 2006). The decision may be appealed.

Georgia Supreme Court OKs Judicial Determination Of Church Membership List

In Bolden v. Barton, (Ga. Sup. Ct., July 6,2006), the Georgia Supreme Court held that in a property dispute among members of a church that governed itself congregationally, the trial court acted properly in ordering an election to decide which of two factions should control church property. The fact that the court had to determine which individuals were members eligible to vote in order to decide which faction represented a majority of the church's membership did not involve the court in deciding matters of religious doctrine.

In Malaysia: A Step Forward For Women and Backward For Free Speech

In Malaysia, a coalition of several non-governmental organizations called "Article 11", has been actively organizing forums to discuss freedom of religion. The discussions have created such tensions that the government has asked the group to end the forums and has told the media to stop printing articles and broadcasting about religious issues. The New Straits Times yesterday reported that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said that the sensationalization of religious issues would bring about "unwanted situations".

Meanwhile, Malaysia's National Fatwa Council has ruled that women may be appointed by State religious authorities as Syariah judges . However, according to the New Straits Times, the women judges will not be allowed to preside over hudud and qisas cases, i.e. those that deal with offences and punishments that are interpreted by Muslim juristic scholars to be derived from the Quran and the Sunnah. In Malaysia these offenses are found in the Syariah Criminal Code Enactment.

Prisoner Free Exercise Cases Abound

In Hill v. Snyder, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50717 (SD IL, July 25, 2006), a state prisoner who adheres to the Hebrew Israelite faith, claimed various infringements of his free exercise rights. An Illinois federal trial court permitted him to proceed with claims relating to the provision of vegan meals, the contents of the food he is given, the discontinuance of his vegan meals, and the requirement that he provide written verification of his religious affiliation from an outside clergy member. However, the court found he had no right to variety in his meals, to trade food items with other inmates, nor to extra time to eat.

Greene v. Solano County Jail, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50380 (ED CA, July 24, 2006), involved a challenge to the policy at Solano's Claybank facility that precluded maximum security inmates from attending group religious services. A California federal district court agreed with prison authorities that security concerns adequately justified the policy and rejected plaintiff's claims based on the First Amendment, RLUIPA, the Equal Protection Clause and the Eighth Amendment.

In Ha'min v. Montgomery County Sheriffs, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50448 (MD TN, July 21, 2006), a Tennessee federal district court judge dismissed the First Amendment claims of a Muslim prisoner who challenged a Tennessee jail's failure to provide regular Friday Muslim religious services and its failure to have copies of the Quran in the jail library while the library did have donated copies of the Bible.
UPDATE: Here is the earlier magistrate's recommendation in the case, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73223.

Johnson v. Rees, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 50556 (ED KY, July 20, 2006) involved rejection by a Kentucky federal district court of a somewhat unusual prisoner Free Exercise and RLUIPA claim. Inmate Johnny Johnson alleged that he is a Jehovah's Witness whose religious faith requires him to "witness" and to distribute religious literature to others. Prison rules permit outside organizations, including the Jehovah's Witnesses, to donate religious literature to the prison's chapel where other inmates are free to take extra copies. But Johnson is not allowed to take that literature and distribute it elsewhere directly to other inmates. The court said that since Johnson can distribute the literature inside the chapel library, he is not totally prevented from engaging in the conduct his faith requires. Only time and place are circumscribed.

Dissent In Washington DOMA Case Argues Establishment Clause

Yesterday, in Andersen v. King County (WA. Sup. Ct., July 26, 2006), the Washington state Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision with six different opinions upheld its Defense of Marriage Act against challenges under various provisions of the state constitution. (New York Times coverage.) The dissenting opinion of Justice Bobb J. Bridge contains an interesting anti-establishment argument. Justice Bridge argues that DOMA is "clearly an unconstitutional foray into state-sanctioned religious belief":

What we ought not to address is marriage as the sacrament or religious rite--an area into which the State is not entitled to intrude at all and which is governed by articles of faith.... As succinctly put by amici ...: "To ban gay civil marriage because some, but not all, religions disfavor it, reflects an impermissible State religious establishment."... After all, we permit civil divorce though many religions prohibit it--why such fierce protection of marriage at its beginning but not its end?...

To many, same-sex relationships and same-sex marriages are contrary to religious teachings. But none of the plaintiffs in the cases before us today seek acceptance of same-sex marriage within a particular religious community. They seek access to civil marriage. Some churches and religious organizations may refuse to solemnize same-sex unions, and that is their right in the free exercise of religion under our constitution. A religious or moral objection to same-sex marriage is not, however, a legitimate state interest that can support the DOMA....

[R]eligious restrictions on the institution of marriage have never governed civil marriage in this country, nor would it be constitutionally permissible for them to do so. For example, historically many religions have strictly forbidden marriage outside of the denomination, but these churches could not prevent interdenominational civil marriages because "marriage was [ultimately] a state matter, not subject to . . . religious restrictions."... This court cannot endorse the use of state law to impose religious sensibilities or religiously-based moral codes on others' most intimate life decisions.... The DOMA reflects a religious viewpoint; religious doctrine should not govern state regulation of civil marriage.