Objective coverage of church-state and religious liberty developments, with extensive links to primary sources.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Court Rejects Claim of Religious Exemption From Income Taxes
Rifqa Bary Remains In Foster Care, Agrees to Counseling
Japan's Supreme Court Says City's Gift of Site For Shrine Is Unconstitutional
Hundreds Killed In Muslim-Christian Violence In Nigeria
Visa Bans for Two Muslim Scholars Lifted
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Free Exercise Claim Growing Out of Auto Search Dismissed
Vatican Issues Guidelines For Scheduled Mideast Synod
18. Political conflicts in the region have a direct influence on the lives of Christians, both as citizens and as Christians. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories makes daily life difficult with regard to freedom of movement, the economy and religious life (access to the Holy Places is dependent on military permission which is granted to some and denied to others on security grounds). Moreover, certain Christian fundamentalist theologies use Sacred Scripture to justify Israel's occupation of Palestine, making the position of Christian Arabs even more sensitive.
19. In Iraq, the war has unleashed evil forces within the country, religious confessions and political movements, making all Iraqis victims. However, because Christians represent the smallest and weakest part of Iraqi communities, they are among the principal victims, with world politics taking no notice.
20. In Lebanon, Christians are deeply divided at a political and confessional level, without a commonly acceptable plan of action. In Egypt, the rise of political Islam, on the one hand, and the disengagement of Christians from civil society on the other, lead to intolerance, inequality and injustice in their lives. Moreover, this Islamisation also penetrates families through the media and school.... In many countries, authoritarianism or dictatorships force the population - Christians included - to bear everything in silence....22. In the Middle East, freedom of religion customarily means freedom of worship and not freedom of conscience, i.e., the freedom to change one's religion for belief in another. Generally speaking, religion in the Middle East is a social and even a national choice, and not an individual one. To change religion is perceived as betraying a society, culture and nation, founded largely on a religious tradition.
23. Conversion is seen as the fruit of a proselytism with personal interests attached and not arising from authentic religious conviction. Oftentimes, the conversion of Jews and Muslims is forbidden by State laws. Christians, though also subjected to pressure and opposition from families and tribes - even if less severely - remain free to change their religion. Many times, the conversion of Christians results not from religious conviction but personal interests or under pressure from Muslim proselytism, particularly to be relieved from obligations related to family difficulties.
British Equality Commission Opens Consultation on Equality Guides
British Proposal Would Permit Religious Same-Sex Commitment Ceremonies
UPDATE: The House of Lords passed the amendment by a vote of 95-21 on March 2. London Times.
Cert. Denied In Kindergarten Bible Reading Ban
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
NY Prison Chaplain Administrator Charges Discrimination
Recent Articles of Interest
- Robert C. Blitt, Should New Bills of Rights Address Emerging International Human Rights Norms? The Challenge of 'Defamation of Religion', (January 18, 2010).
- Bruce Garen Peabody, Analogize This: Partial Constitutional Text, Religion, and Maintaining Our Political Order, (Cardozo Law Review, Forthcoming).
- Steven Paul Goldberg, Neuroscience and the Free Exercise of Religion, (Law and Neuroscience: Current Legal Issues, M. Freeman, ed., Oxford University Press, 2010).
- Michael W. Schwartz, Wahhabism and the First Amendment , (Commentary, 2010).
- The January 2010 Issue of Church & State (from Americans United) has recently appeared.
Military Contractor Secretly Placing Biblical References On Rifle Sights
Tom Munson, Trijicon's director of sales and marketing said there is nothing wrong with the inscriptions and that the issue was raised by a group that is "not Christian." Apparently the practice was called to the military' attention by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. MMRF's founder, Mikey Weinstein, says members of his group that currently serve in the military have complained about the inscriptions, saying that commanders have referred to the weapons with these sights as "spiritually transformed firearm[s] of Jesus Christ." Interfaith Alliance issued a statement calling on the Defense Department to conduct an immediate investigation and to take appropriate action if Trijicon broke any laws.
India's Supreme Court Refuses To Order Constitution Amended To Clarify Status of Sikhs
Ohio High Schoolers Fight Removal of God From School Mission Statement
Lawsuit Asks Court To Uphold Removal of Church Directors
Monday, January 18, 2010
Obama Speaks At D.C. Church About Dr. King's Legacy
Even as Dr. King stood in this church, a victory in the past and uncertainty in the future, he trusted God. He trusted that God would make a way. A way for prayers to be answered. A way for our union to be perfected. A way for the arc of the moral universe, no matter how long, to slowly bend towards truth and bend towards freedom, to bend towards justice. He had faith that God would make a way out of no way....
There are times when it feels like all these efforts are for naught, and change is so painfully slow in coming, and I have to confront my own doubts. But let me tell you -- during those times it's faith that keeps me calm. ... It's faith that gives me peace. The same faith that leads a single mother to work two jobs to put a roof over her head when she has doubts. The same faith that keeps an unemployed father to keep on submitting job applications even after he's been rejected a hundred times. The same faith that says to a teacher even if the first nine children she's teaching she can't reach, that that 10th one she's going to be able to reach. The same faith that breaks the silence of an earthquake's wake with the sound of prayers and hymns sung by a Haitian community. A faith in things not seen, in better days ahead, in Him who holds the future in the hollow of His hand. A faith that lets us mount up on wings like eagles; lets us run and not be weary; lets us walk and not faint.
So let us hold fast to that faith, as Joshua held fast to the faith of his fathers, and together, we shall overcome the challenges of a new age.... Together, we shall seize the promise of this moment. Together, we shall make a way through winter, and we're going to welcome the spring. Through God all things are possible.
NY Appeals Court Says Breakaway Church Property Belongs to Prebyterian Church USA
the Book Of Order, a component of the constitution of PCUSA, contains language specifying that all property held by a particular church is held in trust for the national denomination. The neutral principles approach requires the courts to "look to the constitution of the general church concerning the ownership and control of church property" .... [D]efendants, in opposition to the plaintiffs' motion, failed to demonstrate that PCUSA is not hierarchical, or that cases involving hierarchical religious organizations do not apply here.[Thanks to Joseph Landau for the lead.]
Pope's Visit To Rome Synagogue Focuses Debate On Pius XII's Actions In WW II
In Italy and other parts of Europe, many religious people risked their lives to save thousands of Jews from certain death, without asking anything in return. This is why the silence of Pius XII before the Shoah still hurts because something should have been done. Maybe it would not have stopped the death trains, but it would have sent a signal, a word of extreme comfort, of human solidarity towards those brothers of ours transported to the ovens of Auschwitz.In his address at the Rome Synagogue yesterday (full text) the Pope set out the Vatican's view of its record:
The extermination of the people of the Covenant of Moses, at first announced, then systematically programmed and put into practice in Europe under the Nazi regime, on that day tragically reached as far as Rome. Unfortunately, many remained indifferent, but many, including Italian Catholics, sustained by their faith and by Christian teaching, reacted with courage, often at risk of their lives, opening their arms to assist the Jewish fugitives who were being hunted down, and earning perennial gratitude. The Apostolic See itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way.Last December, Pope Benedict issued a decree moving Pius XII closer to beatification, a move that sparked anger among some Jewish groups. (AP, 12/23/2009). Israel on Sunday asked Pope Benedict to open the Vatican archives to researchers to clarify Pope Pius XII's actions. (Reuters).