Missouri's Governor Responds To Christmas Dispute

Today's St. Louis Jewish Light reports on Missouri Governor Matt Blunt's response last month to a dispute over holiday decorations at Missouri State University. After a Jewish faculty member complained about a Christmas tree in one of the University buildings, it was taken down. However a few days later it reappeared with a Hanukkah menorah next to it. The Governor issued a statement on Nov. 29 saying:

I was deeply troubled by MSU's decision to take down a campus Christmas tree. President Nietzel’s reversal of this outrageous decision by University bureaucrats was the only proper decision and I thank him for it. The historical underpinnings and meaning of Christmas cannot be ignored because some university office received a complaint.

Today, I issued a directive to state agencies that no state employee will be reprimanded, cautioned or disciplined for saying "Merry Christmas" to others. I strongly recommend that MSU as well as all other taxpayer supported institutions adopt my policy.

Charter Proposal In Quebec Would Protect Women From Religious Discrimination

Quebec Premier Jean Charest's government has introduced legislation that would modify the preamble to Quebec's Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to guarantee the Charter's application equally to men and women, according to a report in today's National Post. The proposal, based on a recommendation of the province's Council on the Status of Women, is designed to prevent courts from limiting the rights of women in order to protect religious liberty. Quebec's Charter covers private actions as well as governmental ones. University of Quebec professor Pierre Bosset says that the amendment is not needed because existing provisions in the Charter already prohibits gender discrimination.

The Episcopal Church Incurs High Legal Costs As Members Break Away

Virtue Online yesterday carried an article investigating the amounts being spent on legal fees by The Episcopal Church as local churches break away to join more conservative Anglican provinces. TEC is involved in extensive litigation over rights to the property of the break-away churches. Virtue Online says that the expenditures for 2007 are likely to total over $1 million, and that is without taking account of additional costs TEC will incur from assuming mortgages from church properties to which they may get title.

Preliminary Injunction Sought By Catholic Group Against University of Wisconsin

On Monday, the Roman Catholic Foundation (RCF) at the University of Wisconsin- Madison filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit originally begun in September. RCF is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund which issued a release on Monday's filing and made available the full text of its 32-page memorandum in support of its motion for a preliminary injunction. The suit challenges UW's refusal to allocate student activity funds for RCF events at which students who attended may have worshiped or proselytized. In May 2007, a settlement agreement was reached between RCF and the University, but the current lawsuit alleges that the University has breached the terms of that agreement.

Green Bay Wisconsin Committee Approves Nativity Scene

The latest nativity scene flap comes in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where Green Bay City Council President Chad Fradette got permission from the city's Advisory Committee and Mayor Jim Schmitt so he could put up a nativity scene at City Hall. Fradette pressed the issue after learning that a nativity display in a park in the City of Peshtigo (WI) is being challenged by the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation. Fradette said he wanted to give FFRF "someone a little bit larger than Peshtigo" to pick on, and wanted to "tell the Madison people that Madison values need to stay in Madison". Green Bay's Advisory Committee voted 4-1 to permit the display and to permit others to put up displays representing their religions next to it, pending city approval. Media reports on developments differ in their details. Two reports are from WBAY. One of them says that Fradette will wait until the full city council acts next week before he actually puts up the display. However, today's Green Bay Press-Gazette carries a detailed description of maintenance workers placing the display on the entry overhang of City Hall.

Plaintiff Can Proceed In Claim That Citations Were Aimed At Preventing His Religious Worship

In Price v. Montgomery, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90423 (D SC, Dec. 7, 2007), a South Carolina federal district judge rejected defendants' motion for summary judgment in an unusual Free Exercise case. Plaintiff Darnell Price claimed that three tickets issued to him for violation of local ordinances were issued at the direction of City Manager Carolyn Montgomery in an effort to interfere with Price's worship at the Atlantic Beach (SC) CME Mission Church. The court also permitted Price to move ahead with his Fourth Amendment and his malicious prosecution claims.

Church Program Distributing Shoes In Schools Is Questioned

Americans United said yesterday that it has sent letters to school officials in two South Carolina counties objecting to a church-run program that distributes new shoes to needy children in 25 public schools, but asks them to take part in the Christian ritual of foot-washing as part of the program. AU claims that the"Laces4Love" program run by the First Baptist Church of North Augusta (SC) violates principles of separation of church and state. According to the AP, school officials defend the program saying that each child, not school officials, decide if they want to participate in the foot washing. However, AU director Barry Lynn said that merely the fact that the shoes and socks come from a church group and are distributed in the schools by church officials creates church-state concerns.

Lawsuit In Turkey Challenges Italian Team's Uniforms As Offensive To Muslims

In Izmir, Turkey, lawyer Baris Kaska has filed a lawsuit against Inter Milan, an Italian football (soccer) team because the team's uniforms feature a large "Crusader-style" red cross that is offensive to Muslims. Kaska is asking for damages, and also wants UEFA to invalidate the Champions League match played last month in Milan in which Inter beat Fenerbahce, a Turkish team, by a score of 3-0. The Times of London yesterday quoted Kaska who said the crosses on Inter's new uniforms remind him of the Templar Knights and symbolize "Western racist superiority over Islam". He also wants UEFA and FIFA to fine the Italian team for displaying an offensive symbol.

6th Circuit Defines "Substantial Burden" Under RLUIPA

In Living Water Church of God v. Charter Township of Meridian, (6th Cir., Dec. 10, 2007), the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the religious exercise rights of Living Water Church of God were not substantially burdened when a Michigan township denied it a special use permit that it wanted in order to build a larger church and school on property it owned. The 6th Circuit had not previously defined "substantial burden" for purposes of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. In this case, the court said:

Although RLUIPA assuredly protects religious institutions in their religious exercise, the statute’s language indicates that it is not intended to operate as "an outright exemption from land-use regulations." [citation omitted]....

We decline to set a bright line test by which to "measure" a substantial burden and, instead, look for a framework to apply to the facts before us. To that end, we find the following consideration helpful: though the government action may make religious exercise more expensive or difficult, does the government action place substantial pressure on a religious institution to violate its religious beliefs or effectively bar a religious institution from using its property in the exercise of its religion?...

While Living Water has outgrown its current facility, the record does not contain the kind of facts that would permit a finding that the building which the church can construct without an additional SUP would be so inadequate as to substantially burden Living Water’s religious exercise in the future.

Judge Moore concurred in the judgment, but would have adopted a different definition of "substantial burden" under RLUIPA:

I would adopt the substantial-burden standard established by the Seventh Circuit.... [It] held that "a land-use regulation that imposes a substantial burden on religious
exercise is one that necessarily bears direct, primary, and fundamental responsibility for rendering religious exercise—including the use of real property for the purpose thereof within the regulated jurisdiction generally—effectively impracticable."

[Thanks to Brian D. Wassom for the lead.]

Utah District Considers Ecclesiastical Boundaries In Drawing School Lines

The Provo (Utah) School District Board of Education will vote tonight on a plan to change elementary school boundaries. The plan moves toward aligning the school boundaries with those of LDS Church wards and stakes. Today's Deseret Morning News says the rationale for considering ecclesiastical boundaries is to keep friends together in order to help them feel safe and succeed in school. Church leaders and parents initiated the proposal to for church boundaries to be considered. Other Utah school districts have considered ecclesiastical boundaries in a similar fashion. Commenting on the proposal, Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, D.C., said: "We don't gerrymander our governmental lines around religious parameters. If you need to do that, you'll find school districts, governmental agencies, zoning commissions restructuring all kinds of lines in order to ensure there is religious consolidation and uniformity." However, Derek Davis, former editor of the Journal of Church and State argued that the propriety of the Board's action "depends on what their goals are".

Quebec Commission Holding Hearings On Religious Accommodation

In Canada last February, Quebec's Premier Jean Charest responded to public concern about accommodation of religious practices by creating the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences. (Order In Council). The Commission's website says that it will examine the issues of accommodation broadly, and will examine "the sociocultural integration model established in Québec since the 1970s...[, including] a review of interculturalism, immigration, secularism and the theme of Québec identity. All of this week, the Commission is holding national hearings in Montreal. (List of Monday and Tuesday witnesses.)

One witness on Monday was Claudette Carbonneau, president of the Confederation of National Trade Unions. According to Monday's National Post, she urged that the government of Quebec adopt a new "charter of secularism". Under it employers would not be required to accommodate requests by employees that they be segregated from members of the opposite sex. Students in public schools could not wear restrictive clothing that makes communication difficult. So burkas, niqabs and chadors could be banned in schools. Today's Montreal Gazette reports that leaders of other unions expressed similar views at the hearing. Lucie Grandmont, vice-president of Syndicat de la fonction publique du Québec, told the Commission that civil servants should not wear any religious symbols in order to preserve the secular character of the state.

White House Hosts Hanukkah Reception

Yesterday, at the White House, President Bush hosted a Hanukkah Reception. In his remarks (full text), the President indicated that the menorah that would be used at the ceremony belonged to the grandfather of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Reporter Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Daniel Pearl's parents lit the menorah. Earlier in the day, to mark International Human Rights Day, the President met with a group of Jewish immigrants who had emigrated to the U.S. from Iran, Syria and the Soviet Union in order to gain religious freedom. (President's remarks). Two Jewish members of the President's cabinet-- Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff-- attended the White House Hanukkah reception. One of the interesting photos of the reception on the White House website shows the President speaking at the Hanukkah gathering in a room dominated by two large Christmas trees.

UPDATE: Another photo shows First Lady Laura Bush with three rabbis during the koshering of the White House kitchen that took place before preparing food for the Hanukkah reception.

Under Maldives Proposed Constitution, Only Muslims Could Be Citizens

In the Maldives, a Special Majlis (constitutional assembly) is attempting to draft a new constitution for the country so that presidential elections can take place in 2008. (Minivan News, Dec. 9). According to the blog Secular Maldives, last month, by a large majority, the Special Majlis voted to add a provision to the new constitution that limits citizenship in the Maldives to Muslims.

German Court Rejects Challenge To Ban on Civil Servants Wearing Religious Dress

Both DPA and the AP are reporting on a decision handed down yesterday by a regional court in the German state of Hesse. There are some inconsistencies between the two reports. In 2004, Hesse enacted legislation banning all civil servants from wearing articles of clothing that "could endanger confidence in the neutrality of their carrying out their official duties." Yesterday the court upheld what was apparently a facial challenge to the law, saying that since civil servants represent the state, the state may control what they wear. Attorney Ute Sacksofsky argued that the ban infringes constitutionally protected religious freedom and gender equality. After the court handed down its decision, Sacksofsky said that it did not deal with the question of whether Islamic head coverings came within the statute's prohibitions.

Chile Fines Pharmacies For Refusing To Stock "Morning-After" Pill

In Chile, a government order requires all pharmacies to stock Levonorgestrel, known as the "morning after pill". Yesterday's Christian Post reports that the government has imposed over $300,000 in fines on more than 100 pharmacies that have not complied. One major pharmacy chain that was fined said that selling the pill would violate the religious beliefs of the chain's conservative Catholic owners. A number of individual pharmacies also object to stocking the pill on ethical, moral or religious grounds.

Story Features Maryland City Councilman Who Is Pressing For Sectarian Prayer

Sunday's Washington Post Magazine carries a lengthy profile of Fredricksburg (VA [corrected]) City Councilman Hashmel Turner. A Baptist minister, Turner is suing the city of Fredricksburg claiming that its ban on his invoking the name of a specific deity when delivering a City Council invocation infringes his religious liberty and free speech rights. After losing in federal district court, his case is on appeal to the 4th Circuit. Turner argues that the ban amounts to viewpoint discrimination. The Post story recounts:

A few months after Turner took office, the prayer rotation came to him for the first time.... He mentioned the looming war in Iraq and the "turbulent times," and asked for prayers for state, national and world leaders. "We realize that it is all in your care," Turner said before ending his prayer: "In Jesus's holy name. Amen."

Shortly after, a woman in Turner's district contacted him to say his explicit reference to Jesus Christ had offended her. He was shocked, having never been exposed to the viewpoint "that just mentioning the name of Jesus Christ would offend someone," he says, then stops and chuckles softly. "I'm just a country boy."

[Thanks to Blog from the Capital for the lead.]

Suit Claims Housing Authority Responded Inadequately To Harassment of Muslim Family

Today's San Francisco Chronicle reports that a lawsuit was filed Friday against the San Francisco Housing Authority, alleging that it did not respond adequately to a 2005 complaint by a Pakistani family that their apartment was broken into, their Quran was desecrated and their traditional clothing was shredded. In January 2004, after a number of Muslim families were verbally and physically abused, the Housing Authority had reached a settlement under which it agreed to create an Office of Fair Housing and to respond promptly to complaints of religious and racial harassment. Friday's lawsuit says that the Housing Authority failed to follow its own policy that required immediate relocation of tenant Ashan Khan's family. The Housing Authority argues that the incident was a simple burglary that did not qualify the Khans for an emergency apartment transfer.

Organization Pursuing "Mapping Shari'a" Project In U.S.

Today's Front Page Magazine carries an interview with Dave Gaubatz, a former special agent with the U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Gaubatz is the director of the Mapping Shari'a Project sponsored by a number of private organizations and foundations. Gaubatz describes his project and its preliminary results as follows:

The Mapping Shari’a project ... is both a law enforcement tool and a policy initiative. The project’s objective is to identify all 2300 plus Islamic Centers in the U.S. and determine through first-hand field research which centers advocate strict adherence to Shari’a Law (laws based on the interpretations of Allah and no other) and which centers advocate violent Jihad and the destruction of the West. The data is then be analyzed and put into a matrix. The project is a rigorously objective empirical investigation to test the thesis: That the driving doctrinal force behind Jihad is Shari’a. Indeed, if the thesis is validated, we expect to see a rigid one-to-one correlation between Shari’a adherence and the promotion of Jihad.

... [W]e can report that after the first 100 mosques and day schools, the correlation between Shari’a adherence and the promotion of violence and Jihad against the West is exactly what one would expect.

Today Is Human Rights Day-- 59th Anniversary of UDHR [Corrected]

Today is Human Rights Day. It marks the 59th anniversary of the United Nation's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (General Assembly Resolution 217 A (III) of 10 December 1948 ) (Background). A United Nations release says that today inaugurates a year-long advocacy campaign to raise awareness of the Declaration and its relevance to people around the world. Article 18 of the Declaration provides: "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance." The United Nations has created a separate website devoted to this year's celebration of Human Rights Day.

Ohio Governor Says Nativity Scenes At State Parks Will Stay

Huntington (WV) News reports today that Ohio Governor Ted Strickland on Friday issued an order directing state parks to continue to display their traditional nativity scenes. After receiving a complaint about a nativity display at Shawnee State Lodge, the Ohio state parks business manager had ordered all state parks to remove their nativity displays. The governor's reversal of that directive means that the Shawnee Lodge display, put up by the Garden Club, can remain.

UPDATE: The AP reported on Dec. 14 that the Freedom from Religion Foundation has written Ohio's Inspector General protesting Gov. Strickland's action. The article also gives more background on the original decision to remove nativity scenes. Apparently a Shawnee State Lodge visitor requested that displays representing the Hindu and Zoroastrian religions also be put up. A Strickland spokesman said that the governor is limiting his order to items that are traditionally displayed for the December holidays, and that does not include Zoroastrian symbols.