Objective coverage of church-state and religious liberty developments, with extensive links to primary sources.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Litigation
In Blast v. Fischer, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36318, (WD NY, May 5, 2008), a New York federal magistrate judge refused plaintiff prisoner's request to appoint an expert witness to testify in his RLUIPA case about the Santeria religion and Western Cultural African Yoruba. The court said that the main issue is the sincerity of plaintiff's beliefs, not the objective importance of a particular practice within his faith system.
In El-Tabech v. Clarke, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36793, (D NE, May 5, 2008), a Nebraska federal district court awarded $196,605 in attorneys' fees and $8,380 in costs against defendants in a lawsuit in which a Muslim prisoner won his claim to receive a kosher diet, and his request that the prayer schedule be posted so that guards are aware of it. In awarding the fees, the court said: "Significant and complicated constitutional issues and statutory issues were adjudicated and El-Tabech vindicated not only his own rights, but those of similarly situated prisoners." (See prior related posting.)
In Lakhumna v. Friel, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 37859, (D UT, May 8, 2008), a Utah federal district judge permitted a prisoner to proceed against most of his named defendants in a lawsuit claiming that authorities failed to accommodate his Hindu dietary requirements, and that Hindu inmates are not given the same access to the prison chapel as are others.
Korean Court Rejcts Damage Claim By Expelled High Schooler
Romney Addresses Importance of Religious Freedom To Non-Believers
upon reflection, I realized that while I could defend their absence from my address, I had missed an opportunity…an opportunity to clearly assert the following: non-believers have just as great a stake as believers in defending religious liberty.Romney also strongly defended his December statement that "freedom requires religion." Saturday's Salt Lake Tribune reports on the Becket fund speech.
If a society takes it upon itself to prescribe and proscribe certain streams of belief – to prohibit certain less-favored strains of conscience – it may be the non-believer who is among the first to be condemned. A coercive monopoly of belief threatens everyone, whether we are talking about those who search the philosophies of men or follow the words of God.
We are all in this together. Religious liberty and liberality of thought flow from the common conviction that it is freedom, not coercion, that exalts the individual just as it raises up the nation.
Court says RLUIPA Applies To Zoning Limits On 12-Step Program
Friday, May 09, 2008
Next Steps In FLDS Custody Proceedings Described
Faith Group Sues Over California Limits On Its Use of Park To Feed Homeless
Today's Los Angeles Times, reporting on the case, quotes ACLU attorney Hector Villagra who compares the gathering of homeless at the state beach to picnics and barbecues that are allowed there. Park officials say this is different because it is an organized feeding event that requires a special use permit, like all other formal gatherings.
Group Seeking To Set Up Test Case On Tax Code Non-Profit Limits
Oregon Supreme Court Clarifies Standard For Religious Discrimination
10th Circuit Upholds Bald Eagle Protection Against RFRA Challenge
UPDATE: The May 13 San Diego Union-Tribune follows up on the decision with a mixed reaction to it from Sarah Krakoff, an associate professor of law at the University of Colorado. It also reports that Winslow Friday's attorney is considering seeking en banc review of the 3-judge panel's decision.
Two Schools Want Exemption From Quebec's Religious Culture Course
Feds Appoint Prosecutor To Focus On Polygamy Issues
Meanwhile yesterday in St. George, Utah, some 200 people attended the annual conference presented by the Utah-Arizona Safety Net Committee to hear presentations by members of polygamous communities, news media, social service providers and law enforcement. Yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune quotes conference participant Anne Wilde from the "fundamentalist Mormon" advocacy group, Principle Voices, who said that fundamentalist Mormons represent a wide diversity of beliefs, and should not all be lumped together with the FLDS.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Malaysian Sharia Court Agrees To Cancel Woman's Prior Conversion To Islam
Christian Student Group Sues to Challenge University Speech Code
Evangelical Manifesto Released Urging A "Civil Public Square"
The Associated Press, reported on the document, pointing out that a number of Christian religious leaders on the political right do not support it. Americans United for Separation of Church and State gave the Manifesto qualified praise, or, as it said, it gave it "one amen". More information on the Manifesto, including a lengthy Study Guide, is available on the Evangelical Manifesto website.[W]e repudiate two equal and opposite errors into which many Christians have fallen. One error is to privatize faith, applying it to the personal and spiritual realm only.... The other error, made by both the religious left and the religious right, is to politicize faith, using faith to express essentially political points that have lost touch with biblical truth. That way faith loses its independence, Christians become the "useful idiots" for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology. Christian beliefs become the weapons of political factions....
[W]e repudiate the two extremes that define the present culture wars in the United States..... We are committed to a civil public square – a vision of public life in which citizens of all faiths are free to enter and engage the public square on the basis of their faith, but within a framework of what is agreed to be just and free for other faiths as well....
[W]e are concerned that a generation of culture warring ... has created a powerful backlash against all religion in public life among many educated people.... [W]e are concerned that globalization and the emerging global public square have no matching vision of how to live with our deepest differences on the global stage.... [W]e warn of the danger of a two-tier global public square. This is a model of public life which reserves the top tier for cosmopolitan secular liberals, and the lower tier for local religious believers.
Religious Monuments Case Delays Army Memorial To Plane Crash Victims
In reporting to Congress last week, an Army spokesman wrote: "Due to the ramifications that this case may have on the Army's acceptance of the Bakers Creek Memorial or any other monument funded by private funds, the Army will await the Supreme Court's decision to assess its options." Robert Cutler, executive director of the Bakers Creek Memorial Association, suggested a solution-- have the Army buy the memorial for a nominal amount so it is not "donated". Meanwhile the memorial remains temporarily at the Australian Embassy in Washington. (A posting at Texomas carries a photo of the memorial.)
McCain Speaks Out On International Religious Freedom
There is no right more fundamental to a free society than the free practice of religion. Behind walls of prisons and persecuted before our very eyes in places like China, Iran, Burma, Sudan, North Korea and Saudi Arabia are tens-of-thousands of people whose only crime is to worship God in their own way. No society that denies religious freedom can ever rightly claim to be good in some other way. And no person can ever be true to any faith that believes in the dignity of all human life if they do not act out of concern for those whose dignity is assailed because of their faith. As President, I intend to make religious freedom a subject of great importance for the United States in our relations with other nations.In the speech he also focused on the evils of human trafficking and use of the Internet by child predators. CNN reported on the speech.
San Angelo Mayor Writes of Logistical Challenges After FLDS Ranch Raid
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Kansas High Court Upholds Citizen Grand Jury Law Used By Abortion Foes
Maryland High Court Refuses To Grant Comity To Pakistani Talaq Divorce
After Farah Aleem filed for divorce in a Maryland court, her husband, Irfan Aleem, without notice to Farah, went to the Pakistani embassy in Washington and performed talaq by executing a written document that recited "I divorce thee" three times. Under Pakistani law, unless agreed otherwise, the wife has no claim to property owned by her husband on the date of divorce. In her Maryland divorce action, Farah sought to have Irfan's World Bank pension and other assets declared marital property. Pointing to a provision in Maryland's constitution (Declaration of Rights, Art. 46) that assures equal rights to men and women, the court reasoned that:
the enforceability of a foreign talaq divorce provision, such as that presented here, in the courts of Maryland, where only the male, i.e., husband, has an independent right to utilize talaq and the wife may utilize it only with the husband’s permission, is contrary to Maryland’s constitutional provisions....The court concluded that:
talaq divorce of countries applying Islamic law, unless substantially modified, is contrary to the public policy of this state... where, in the absence of valid agreements otherwise, ... marital property is subject to fair and equitable division.... Additionally, a procedure that permits a man (and him only unless he agrees otherwise) to evade a divorce action begun in this State by rushing to the embassy of a country recognizing talaq and ... summarily terminate the marriage and deprive his wife of marital property, confers insufficient due process to his wife. Accordingly, for this additional reason the courts of Maryland shall not recognize the talaq divorce performed here.The court observed in an introductory footnote: "we address Islamic law only to the extent it is also the civil law of a country. The viability of Islamic law as a religious canon is not intended to be affected." Today's Baltimore Sun, reporting on the decision, notes that the assets involved in the case total $2 million.