Senator Seeks Information On Financial Accountability From Six Tele-Evangelists

Yesterday's Houston Chronicle reports that Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, has sent letters to six tele-evangelists asking for information about alleged misuse of donations to the religious organizations. As church groups, they are exempt from filing the usual Form 990 that non-profits submit to the IRS. Saying that he was acting after receiving complaints from the public and seeing news media coverage, Grassley said that "allegations involve governing boards that aren't independent and allow generous salaries and housing allowances and amenities such as private jets and Rolls Royces." Sen. Grassley's website links to the six letters, each of which asks for extensive information and documents. His letters to each begins by saying: "The Finance Committee has a long tradition of reviewing tax-exempt organizations. It is important that Congress and the public have confidence that public charities, which benefit from very significant tax breaks, are operated in a manner that promotes continued trust and that the adhere to guidelines established by the Internal Revenue Service."

Updates on Election Results of Interest

Here are links to updates of three recent postings on yesterday's election contests. The Updates reflect election results and other developments: gubernatorial races in Kentucky (including developments on a 10 commandments issue)and Mississippi and two ballot issues (Michigan and Utah).

Mississippi Gubernatorial Challenger Runs Evangelical-Laden Campaign

Today residents of Mississippi are voting for governor. Yesterday's Washington Post reports on the Christian evangelical overtones in the campaign of Democratic challenger John Arthur Eaves Jr. He says he is running against Republican incumbent Haley Barbour because he wants "to serve my creator." Eaves' website asks, "Who's on Jesus' side in Mississippi?" He advocates banishing "the money changers" from state politics and supports a health-care proposal that he says focuses on the "least among us" -- just as Jesus would. Columnist Jerome Wright, in a piece in the Memphis (TN) Appeal, says that "... Eaves faces an insurmountable task to win the election. Yet, he may do better than originally expected."

UPDATE: As expected, Gov. Haley Barbour was elected to a second term in Tuesday's contest. (Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.)

Two Ballot Issues Around Nation Impact Church-State Concerns

In today's off-year elections around the United States, at least two issues impact church-state concerns. In Berkley, Michigan voters will decide whether to approve an amendment to the city charter to require the display of a nativity scene on city hall property. (See prior posting.) Sunday's Observer & Eccentric reports that a write-in candidate for mayor, 76-year old Maybelle Fraser, who supports the nativity display, decided to mount a campaign against incumbent 73-year old mayor, Marilyn Stephan, over the nativity scene issue. Stephan was among the majority of council who voted 6-1 to donate the nativity scene to the Berkley Clergy Association for display at local churches.

In Utah, voters are casting ballots on a school voucher program that includes vouchers that can be used in private religious schools-- so long as the school enrolls at least 40 students. Yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune carries a Q&A on the proposal. Vouchers of $500 per student would be available regardless of family income, with vouchers of up to $3000 per student for lower income families. The voucher program was passed by the legislature in February (see prior posting), but opponents gathered enough signatures to force this referendum on the law.

UPDATE: Berkley, Michigan's proposed charter amendment to require display of a nativity scene on city property was defeated 55%- 45% in Tuesday's election. (Detroit Free Press.) Also on Tuesday, Utah's voucher program was defeated by a substantial majority. With most of the precincts in, over 60% of voters had voted to kill the voucher law. (Salt Lake Tribune.)

Rise of Independent Congregations Explains Rising Church Litigation

Last Sunday's Tennessean carries a report on the rising number of lawsuits between church members and church leaders. Many times the disputes revolve around spending of funds and access to church financial records. The article quotes experts who say that the rise of mega-churches and other independent congregations means that there is often no hierarchy to which congregants can appeal if they are dissatisfied with the conduct of the church's pastor. So church members turn to secular courts to deal with their complaints.

Columnist Says Anti-Semitism On Rise In Britain

Conservative columnist Melanie Phillips writing in the Autumn 2007 issue of Manhattan Institute's magazine, City Journal, says that anti-Semitism is on the rise in Britain. Here is a short excerpt from her lengthy article:

Every synagogue service and Jewish communal event now requires guards on the lookout for violence from both neo-Nazis and Muslim extremists. Orthodox Jews have become particular targets; some have begun wearing baseball caps instead of skullcaps and concealing their Star of David jewelry....

[A]nti-Semitism has also become respectable in mainstream British society.... At the heart of this ugly development is a new variety of anti-Semitism, aimed primarily not at the Jewish religion, and not at a purported Jewish race, but at the Jewish state. Zionism is now a dirty word in Britain, and opposition to Israel has become a fig leaf for a resurgence of the oldest hatred.

Pre-Trial Hearing Held In Charges Against Anti-Gay Funeral Protesters

Yesterday anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church leader Shirley Phelps-Roper appeared at a pre-trial hearing in a Sarpy County (Nebraska) Court. Bellevue, Nebraska police charge her with flag mutilation, disturbing the peace, negligent child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, all growing out of one of Westboro's funeral protests in which Phelps-Roper's 10-year-old son stomped on an American flag. Yesterday's Omaha World-Herald reports that the pretrial hearing focused on a defense motion requesting that the prosecution describe in detail the facts that support each of the charges. Later Phelps-Roper said that her son, Jason, had grown up attending protests and acted on his own in standing on the flag that he placed on the ground. The court asked both sides to submit written arguments on the defense motion. (See prior related posting.)

US Agency Wants To Talk With Nigerian Leader About Religious Freedom

Today's Nigerian Tribune says that the U.S. Institute of Peace has invited the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, to open a direct discussions on religious freedom in Nigeria. The U.S. government is concerned about the potential for rising influence by Islamic militants in Nigeria.

Blogger Questions Verdict Against Westboro Funeral Picketers

At PrawfsBlawg, Howard Wasserman has an interesting post on the recent $10.9 million verdict against the Westboro Baptist Church funeral picketers. Less sympathetic to the jury's determination than much of the commentary has been, Wasserman predicts that the damage award will be overturned by the 4th Circuit. He questions some of the judge's instructions to the jury as well as the extent of interference into the Snyder family's privacy that was really involved.

UPDATE: Another analysis of the legal issues in the case appears today in an article by Michael C. Dorf on Findlaw. [Thanks to How Appealing for the lead.]

Zoning Issue Posed By "Theater Church"

An article in yesterday's Lancaster (PA) Sunday News raises an interesting religious land use issue posed by the apparently growing practice of churches renting out movie theaters for use for religious services on Sunday mornings. The zoning rules in Manheim Township, Pennsylvania permit theaters and other commercial uses in industrial zones, but not churches. Township zoning officials have issued a notice of violation to the owner of the Penn Cinema who rents out his theater each Sunday to the Crossings Church. Theater owner Penn Ketchum argues that renting out the theater for a church service does not change the character of the building. He argues: "While they're finishing up their service, we're literally opening our doors to the moviegoing public."... At no time do we cease to be a movie theater. We continue to be well within our parking ratios, as well as building capacity. The service still leaves literally 90 percent of the building unoccupied.... To me there's a big difference between a church and a church service."

Plans For London Mosque Draw Opposition

In a story from Britain, yesterday's International Herald Tribune focuses on the the opposition that has developed to plans to build a large mosque in London's East End. Originally it would have been the largest mosque in Europe at the gateway to the 2012 Olympics. Christian Peoples Alliance Party leader Alan Craig has started a campaign against the mosque, first focusing on its size, but then objecting to its sponsor, the Tablighi Jamaat, an evangelical Islamic group based in Pakistan whose teachings, authorities say, encourage terrorists. The original plans for the mosque envisioned a complex that would hold 70,000 worshipers, featuring wind turbines instead of minarets, as well as gardens, courtyards and restaurants. Those grand plans have now been dropped as a new architectural firm has been hired to design a smaller mosque, one that will accommodate 12,000. Planners are moving slowly, and say they will not break ground until after the 2012 Olympics. Also a London public relations firm has been hired and has created a website to deal with concerns about the planned mosque.

Egyptian Court Acquits Christians Charged With Defaming Islam

M&C reported yesterday that in Egypt, Christian activists Adel Fawzy Faltas and Peter Ezzat have been acquitted by a state security court of charges of threatening social peace by propagating anti-Islamic material. The charges stemmed from their distributing a book titled The Persecuted that focuses on the perceived persecution of Christian Copts. Earlier charges of converting a Muslim, Mohamed Ahmed Hegazy, to Christianity, were dropped for lack of evidence.

Recently Available Articles on Law and Religion

From SSRN:

• R. Randall Kelso, Custom and Tradition Versus Reason in Modern Secular and Religious Moral Reasoning and in Modern Constitutional Law, (August 2007).


• Christina T. Trotta, From God to Gab: Analyzing the First Amendment Rights of Religious Student Groups in an Age of Free Speech and Political Correctness, (February 16, 2007).


• Mary Jean Dolan, Government-Sponsored Chaplains and Crisis: Walking the Fine Line in Disaster Response and Daily Life, (Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 3, 2008).


• Alan Weinstein, Avoiding a RLUIPA Claim, (Cleveland-Marshall Legal Studies Paper No. 07-150, Oct. 24, 2007).

From Bepress:

• Patrick McKinley Brennan, Locating Authority in Law, and Avoiding the Authoritarianism of 'Textualism', (Villanova University School of Law Working Paper Series, No. 86, Oct. 2007. Forthcoming, Notre Dame Law Review.)

From SmartCILP:

• 13th Annual International Law and Religion Symposium. The 1981 U.N. Declaration on Religious Tolerance and Non-discrimination: Implementing Its Principles after Twenty-five Years, 2007 Brigham Young University Law Review 575-812 (2007). Articles by: Jose Maria Contreras Mazario, Carolyn Evans, Shavarsh Khachatryan, Christopher Marsh, Daniel P. Payne, Raul Gonzalez Schmal, Robert A. Seiple, Eiichiro Takahata, Khatuna Tsintsadze, Carlos Valderrama Adriansen and Ilhan Yildiz.

Belgians Bring Fraud Charges Against Church of Scientology

Yesterday's St. Petersburg (FL) Times reports that Belgian prosecutors, after ten years of investigation, are bringing criminal charges against the Church of Scientology in Belgium and 12 of its members, along with the Church's European Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights. Officials say that the Church's Belgium operations constitute a "criminal organization" that has used fraud and extortion to obtain money from its members. Defendants are also charged with practicing medicine without a license and violating privacy laws. Scientology spokesman Fabio Amicarelli said: "In 2007, the position of the (Belgian) prosecutor is really out of date."

Court Refuses Summary Judgment In Religious Leafleting Case

Frantz v. Gress, (ED PA, Oct. 25, 2007), involved a claim by plaintiff that he was impeded by police officers in his attempts to hand out religious pamphlets on a public sidewalk in Philadelphia. Plaintiff argued this was an unconstitutional content-based restriction on his speech. The court refused to grant plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, however, holding that issues of material fact remain regarding the reasons officers did not allow plaintiff to continue distributing his pamphlets in the manner he wished. The court also, though, rejected defendants' claims of qualified immunity.

Minnesota High Court Reverses Clergy Sexual Conduct Conviction In Split Decision

In a fragmented decision handed down by the Minnesota Supreme Court last week, Catholic priest John Joseph Bussmann's conviction under the state's clergy sexual conduct statute was reversed and remanded for a new trial. At issue was the priest's relationships with two adult female parishioners who he was counselling on religious and marital issues. In State of Minnesota v. Bussmann, (MN Sup. Ct., Nov. 1, 2007), the court described its ultimate holding as follows:

The clergy sexual conduct statute makes it a crime for a member of the clergy to engage in sexual penetration with a person who is seeking or receiving “religious or spiritual advice, aid, or comfort in private.” Bussmann argues that the clergy sexual conduct statute is unconstitutional because it is void for vagueness and it violates the Establishment Clause of the United States and Minnesota Constitutions. Because we (1) conclude that the clergy sexual conduct statute is not void for vagueness; (2) are equally divided on whether the statute facially violates the Establishment Clause; but (3) conclude that Bussmann’s conviction, based on the admission of extensive evidence concerning religious doctrine and church policies and practices, violated the Establishment Clause, we affirm the court of appeals’ decision on the first two issues, reverse the court of appeals’ decision on the third issue, and remand for a new trial.

The judges who concluded that the statute was facially inconsistent with the Establishment Clause argued that its provisions: "are not secular and neutral, but instead incorporate religious doctrine, as reflected in the legislative determinations that the clergy member is always in a position of power over an advisee, that any sexual penetration with an advisee is always causally related to the religious and spiritual advice given by the clergy member to an advisee, and that an advisee always lacks capacity to effectively consent to that sexual penetration."

3rd Circuit Overturns Religious Tax Protesters' Convictions

Friday's Philadelphia Inquirer reports on last week's decision by the U.S. 3rd Circuit court of Appeals reversing the convictions on most of the tax evasion charges that had been brought against three members of the pacifist Reformed Israel of Yaweh religious sect. Defendants, it was claimed, failed to pay some $300,000 in employment taxes for themselves and other employees who were members of their sect because they objected to the use of tax proceeds to support war.

In United States v. McKee, (3d Cir., Oct. 29, 2007), the court upheld the defendants' conviction for conspiracy to defraud the United States, but reversed their convictions for employment tax evasion on the ground that the jury instructions constructively amended the indictment. The court, though, did not order an acquittal on these charges, finding that there was sufficient evidence to convict on the amended charges. Finally the court ordered acquittal of one of the defendants on charges of failure to file individual income tax returns because the evidence was insufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Peter Goldberger who represented two of the defendants criticized the appellate court for failing to reach the religious freedom issues involved, saying "It's a threat to every established pacifist religion that has had kind of an unwritten understanding with the IRS." One of the defendants has by now already completed her sentence, and two others have been moved to halfway houses and home confinement. However all three had been ordered by the trial court to file delinquent tax forms and pay back taxes as a condition of their release from prison, something to which they still object. They did pay the fines and penalties imposed on them, and technically they are now due a refund because of the reversal of many of their convictions. [Thanks to Jack E. Shattuck for the lead.]

Kentucky Governor Asks Court To Clarify 10 Commandments Ban

As the gubernatorial election approaches in Kentucky, Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration last Monday filed a petition in federal district court asking it to clarify the scope of an earlier injunction prohibiting the state from placing a 10 Commandments monument on statehouse grounds. (See prior posting.) According to WYMT News as well as a press release from the Governor, the new lawsuit was filed after a recent donation to the statehouse by a private citizen of the "Foundations of American Law and Government Display", a display that includes documents like the Mayflower Compact and the Bill of Rights along with the Ten Commandments. The governor's race between Republican Fletcher and Democrat Steve Beshear (the state's Attorney General from 1980-84) has included attacks on Beshear for a 1981 opinion [LEXIS link to OAG 81-12] he wrote advising public schools that a then-recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling meant that public schools must remove copies of the Ten Commandments already hanging in classrooms. A spokesperson for Gov. Fletcher said that the recent court filing had nothing to do with the upcoming election.

UPDATE: On Monday, a day before the gubernatorial election, a Kentucky federal district court ruled that the earlier orders enjoining the placing of a large 10 Commandments Monument outside the Kentucky Capitol did not apply to the Foundations of American Law display. However the court did not rule on the constitutionality of the Foundations display. Within hours the Foundations display was put up in the Capitol Rotunda and Gov. Fletcher issued an executive order calling for it to remain until a later court ruling is issued. (Louisville Courrier-Journal, Nov. 6.) Meanwhile, AP reported on Wednesday that former state AG Steve Beshear defeated Fletcher in the gubernatorial race. In the campaign, Beshear touted his religious upbringing and ran TV ads with him in front of a church.

Court Enjoins Georgia City's Parade and Demonstration Ordinance

In Baumann v. City of Cumming, Georgia, (ND GA, Nov. 2, 2007), a Georgia federal district court issued a preliminary injunction barring the city of Cumming, Georgia from enforcing its parade and demonstration ordinance. The challenge to the ordinance was filed by Fredric Baumann who was arrested for handing out Christian gospel tracts on the sidewalk in front of the Cumming Fairgrounds without a permit. (See prior posting.) Baumann argued that the ordinance violates his First Amendment rights and is unconstitutionally vague. The City did not dispute these assertions, but only argued that Baumann lacked standing to seek an injunction. Finding that plaintiff has standing, the court continued: "Because the city’s ordinance applies to groups as small as four, effectively forbids spontaneous speech, and purports to regulate speech in all public areas, the court concludes that plaintiff will likely prove that the ordinance burdens substantially more speech than is necessary to further the city’s legitimate and important interests in public safety and the orderly flow of traffic." An Alliance Defense Fund release praised the court's decision.

Finland Charges Sex Discrimination In Dispute Over Female Clergy

In the past few days, both Christianity Today and WorldNet Daily have reported on the prosecution in Finland of a clergyman for gender discrimination after he refused to work together at a worship service with a female pastor. Ari Norro is a preacher affiliated with the Lutheran Evangelical Association in Finland (LEAF). LEAF is part of the country's state church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. However LEAF believes the Bible prohibits women from serving as pastors. Last March, when Norro showed up as a guest preacher at a church in southern Finland, he discovered that Petra Pohjanraito was also scheduled to help distribute communion at the service. Norro said he was leaving because he could not co-officiate with a female pastor, but instead Ms. Pohjanraito decided to leave so Norro could speak. Subsequently the head of the Hyvinkää Church Council asked police to investigate, and a prosecution for gender discrimination followed. Norro's trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 16. Norro argues that his prosecution on account of religious beliefs is inconsistent with protections in Finland's constitution.