Objective coverage of church-state and religious liberty developments, with extensive links to primary sources.
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
India's Supreme Court Permits Educational Set-Asides For Muslims
Court Rejects Equitable Relief In Inmate's Request To Prevent Autopsy
Arthur suddenly invokes the equitable power of this Court, just two days before the scheduled execution, seeking to restrain the State, without a full hearing on the merits, from performing on autopsy on his body. The timing of this action bears the unmistakable taint of an ambush, an exercise in eleventh-hour gamesmanship with the intent to procure an unfair strategic advantage over defendants. Such conduct is the very antithesis of the equitable, diligent, good-faith, vigilant conduct required of a litigant seeking equitable relief.In addition the court held that the statute of limitations for filing a claim under 42 USC 1983 had run, holding that even though Arthur seeks prospective relief, his cause of action accrued "not at the time of the autopsy, but when the facts which would support a cause of action should have been apparent to a person with a reasonably prudent regard for his rights."
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
9th Circuit Hears Church's Challenge To Montana Election Finance Reporting Law
Colorado Local Commissions Debate Invocation Policies
Meanwhile yesterday's Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reports that a Mesa County Commissioner (the county in which Grand Junction is located) is taking a different view. Under a policy adopted in 2005, one of the three Commissioners opens the County Commission meeting with a prayer which those in attendance are told they may join if they wish. Commissioner Janet Rowland yesterday ended her prayer "in the name of Jesus". Challenged at the meeting by a local resident, Rowland, who is in the midst of a primary contest for Republican nomination for a Commission seat, said: "I don't mind losing the election, but I do mind losing my faith or my belief in the Constitution."
Greek Court Acquits Missionary on Illegal Proselytizing Charges
D.C. Circuit Holds Navy Chaplains Lack Standing In Establishment Clause Case
Plaintiffs' argument would extend the religious display and prayer cases in a significant and unprecedented manner and eviscerate well-settled standing limitations. Under plaintiffs’ theory, every government action that allegedly violates the Establishment Clause could be re-characterized as a governmental message promoting religion. And therefore everyone who becomes aware of the "message" would have standing to sue.Judge Rogers dissented, arguing that plaintiffs' membership in the Chaplains Corps gives them sufficient particularized injury to meet the Article III standing requirements. (See prior related posting.)
Westboro Baptist Church Fire Called Hate Crime By Church's Leader
Florida Court Rejects Challenges To November Ballot Initiatives
The court held that the two ballot initiatives were within the authority of the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission since they both involve matters relating to taxation or the budgetary process. It also found that the title and ballot summary for Initiative 9 are not misleading to voters. The Florida Times-Union reports on the decision. Alliance Defense Fund issued a release supporting the court's decision. Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced it would appeal the ruling.
Spanish Lawsuit Seeks To Rehabilitate Reputation of Knights Templar
The Templars was a powerful secretive group of warrior monks founded by French knight Hugues de Payens after the First Crusade of 1099 to protect pilgrims en route to Jerusalem. They amassed enormous wealth and helped to finance wars waged by European monarchs, but spectacularly fell from grace after the Muslims reconquered the Holy Land in 1244 and rumours surfaced of their heretic practices. The Knights were accused of denying Jesus, worshipping icons of the devil in secret initiation ceremonies, and practising sodomy....
The legal move by the Spanish group ... follows the unprecedented step by the Vatican towards the rehabilitation of the group when last October it released copies of parchments recording the trials of the Knights between 1307 and 1312.... The Chinon parchment revealed that, contrary to historic belief, Clement V had declared the Templars were not heretics but disbanded the order anyway to maintain peace with their accuser, King Philip IV of France.
Court Says Defendant Did Not Show AA Meetings Were Religious
Monday, August 04, 2008
Utah-Appointed Trustee For FLDS Is Seeking Control of Canadian School
South Carolina Legislator Says Lord's Prayer In New Display Law Is "Poison Pill"
Recently Scholarly Articles and New Book of Interest
- Steven J. Heyman, Hate Speech, Public Discourse, and the First Amendment, (in Extreme Speech and Democracy, Ivan Hare, James Weinstein (eds.), Oxford University Press, Forthcoming).
- Maleiha Malik, Religious Freedom and Multiculturalism: R (Shabina Begum) V Denbigh High School, (King's Law Journal, Vol. 19, No. 2 (July 25, 2008)).
- Adam Grieser, Peter Jacques & Richard Witmer, Reconsidering Religion Policy as Violence: Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 10 The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Minority Issues 373-396 (2008).
- Osama Siddique & Zahra Hayat, Unholy Speech and Holy Laws: Blasphemy Laws in Pakistan--Controversial Origins, Design Defects, and Free Speech Implications, 17 Minnesota Journal of International Law 303-385 (2008).
- Lisa M. Holmes, Religious Affiliation, Personal Beliefs, and the President's Framing of Judicial Nominees, 56 Drake Law Review 679-704 (2008).
- Christine L. Nemacheck, Have Faith in Your Nominee? The Role of Candidate Religious Beliefs in Supreme Court Selection Politics, 56 Drake Law Review 706-728 (2008).
- Symposium: Educational Choice: Emerging Legal and Policy Issues, 2008 BYU Law Review 227-592 [full text of all articles].
- Andrew P. Morriss, Bootleggers, Baptists and Televangelists, Regulation, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 26-31, Summer 2008.
- The Spring 2008 issue (Vol. 50, No. 2) of the Journal of Church and State has recently been issued. [Table of Contents].
New Book:
- Herbert London, America’s Secular Challenge-- The Rise of a New National Religion, (Encounter Books, 2008), reviewed by the Washington Times.
McCain Catholic Outreach Spokesman Criticized
Israel's Chief Rabbi Backs Off Appointing More Conversion Court Judges
Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases
In Johnson v. Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Corrections, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 56978 (SD OH, July 18, 2008), an Ohio federal magistrate judge recommended denial of a temporary restraining order in a Rastafarian inmate's challenge to Ohio prison regulations regarding hair length.
In Hatcher v. Bristol City Sheriff's Office, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57267 (WD VA, July 29, 2008), a Virginia federal district court agreed with prison officials that an inmate could be denied a no-pork diet. the court held that plaintiff "admits that his desire to 'purify' himself so that he can read the Quran has nothing to do with his personal, religious beliefs, but rather, arises from his desire to grow closer to his Shiite father. The descriptions of [his] beliefs in this complaint simply do not demonstrate that a diet including pork substantially burdens his ability to practice those beliefs."
In Sheik v. Wosham, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57295 (ED MO, July 24, 2008), a Missouri federal district court rejected an inmate's complaints about the prison's policy of "referring to him as 'Mark S. Moore a/k/a Sheik Mark Stanton Moore-El,' rather than 'Sheik Mark Stanton Moore-El a/k/a Mark S. Moore'." It also concluded that plaintiff failed to allege any "governmental policy or custom" that resulted in infringement of his right to practice his Ancient Canaanite Moorish religion.
In Hollins v. Gitzelle, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 57423 (WD WI, July 22, 2008), a Wisconsin federal district court permitted a Muslim inmate to proceed with claims that he was denied access to Muslim religious services and to Halal food.
In Cartwright v. Meade, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 58127 (WD VA, July 31, 2008), a Virginia federal district court upheld prison authorities' seizure of reading materials regarding the Five Percent Nation of Islam. Virginia prison officials had classified the group as a security threat, and its material as gang-related.
The Jackson Hole (WY) Star Tribune (July 30) reported on the settlement of a Native American inmate's lawsuit against the Wyoming State Penitentiary. Andrew Yellowbear Jr. agreed to drop his federal lawsuit after prison authorities agreed that he could possess four eagle feathers for religious purposes. This is a compromise between the 10 feathers that Yellowbear requested, and the one originally allowed by prison authorities.