Dalai Lama To Transfer His Political Power To Elected Official

AP reports that the Dalai Lama will give up his political role in the Tibetan government-in-exile and will turn that formal role over to an elected leader.  The Dalai Lama said he will propose amendments to the constitution of the government-in-exile at its session that begins this week in Dharmsala, India. An election for a new prime minister for the government-in-exile is also scheduled this month, and that person may be the one to take on the Dalai Lama's political duties.

New Review of Religious Tolerance At Air Force Academy To Be Undertaken

AP reported yesterday that a retired Air Force general will conduct a review of the religious climate at the U.S. Air Force Academy . The Academy has been at the center of charges of religious intolerance for the past seven years. General Patrick K. Gamble, now president of the University of Alaska, will assemble a team of five or six members to take an "independent, subjective look at the overall climate at USAFA relating to free exercise of religion." The review is designed to evaluate various initiatives undertaken since 2004 that were designed to improve religious tolerance. A lengthy report on issues of religious tolerance at the Academy was issued in 2005. (See prior posting.)

Maryland House Fails To Pass Same Sex Marriage Bill After Religious Opposition

Baptist Press reports that Maryland's House of Delegates yesterday voted to send the pending same-sex marriage bill back to committee after the leadership determined that they lacked the votes to pass it.  The Maryland Senate passed the bill last month (see prior posting), and it was expected that the House would also pass it.  However opposition from predominately black churches, as well as from the Maryland Catholic Conference, meant that the bill was unable to get enough Democratic support. Two members of the black caucus switched from being co-sponsors to opposing the bill. Del. Cheryl Glenn, a member of the black caucus said: "The black churches -- since I've been here -- have never asked us for anything, that I can recall. They are asking now, 'Don't use the word marriage.'" Leaders expect the House will take up the bill again next year.

Defendant's Absence From Trial For Religious Reasons Held To Be Voluntary Waiver

In Eubanks v. Lempke, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23642 (SD NY, Feb. 22, 2011), a New York federal district court denied a habeas corpus petition filed by Isaac Eubanks, a Muslim, who was absent from his state court trial for religious reasons on the Friday when the jury returned with its verdict convicting him of robbery and possession of stolen property. The federal court held that the state court's determination that Eubanks had voluntarily waived his right to be present was not objectively unreasonable. He had attended pre-trial proceedings on other Fridays.  His counsel did not object at trial and the state has a "controlling public interest" in protecting the integrity of jury deliberations.

Chechnya Criticized For Imposing Islamic Dress Code on Women

Human Rights Watch yesterday released a report titled You Dress According to Their Rules: Enforcement of an Islamic Dress Code for Women in Chechnya (full text). Here is a summary from the text of the report:

This report describes violence and threats against women in Chechnya to intimidate them into adhering to a compulsory Islamic dress code. The documented attacks and incidents of harassment took place from June through September 2010, when the virtue campaign in the republic intensified. During that time, dozens of women were subjected to attacks by men, including law enforcement officials, in the center of Grozny, for not wearing a headscarf or for dressing in a manner which these men deemed insufficiently modest. While pressure on women seemed to become less aggressive after September the dress requirement remains a live issue and continues to be backed by high-level officials, including Ramzan Kadyrov.

Interfaith Leaders Criticize House Hearings On Radicalization of Muslims

Twenty-six religious leaders-- Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh-- yesterday issued a statement (full text) criticizing U.S. Rep. Peter King's hearing on the radicalization of American Muslims. The statement reads in part:

We urge the members of our government as well as citizens of good will to refrain from passing judgment on religious or faith groups based on the actions of the few who pervert their spiritual traditions through acts of violence and hostile rhetoric. We believe that politicians, cultural figures and members of the media are never justified in exploiting religious differences in order to advance ideological or political aims. Our leaders in Congress and the Administration must stand up and speak out against these hearings – hearings that perpetuate misrepresentations and harm our country rather than lead it to greater awareness and a strengthened citizenry.

The interfaith coalition-- calling themselves "Shoulder to Shoulder"-- also held a press conference yesterday to criticize the hearings. (Transcript of press conference.)

Fired Nurse Sues Catholic Hospital For Defamation

The San Antonio Express-News reports on a defamation lawsuit against a Catholic hospital that went to trial yesterday in a Bexar County (TX) trial court. Tammy Perez is a devout Catholic who was formerly employed as a nurse by Christus Santa Rosa Health System. She claims that the hospital defamed her in the process of firing her in retaliation for her reporting to officials of the Archdiocese that the hospital had performed an abortion. She prepped the patient for the procedure. The hospital says that the procedure at issue involved a miscarriage, while Perez claims that there had not been an ultrasound to determine if there was still a fetal heart beat. She says the patient told her she had not miscarried. The hospital says they fired Perez because she violated privacy laws by revealing medical information regarding the patient to a priest who was the archdiocesan administrator. Meanwhile, in response to a pre-trial motion, the court ruled that the question of whether an abortion in fact was performed will not be an issue at trial.

House Will Defend DOMA In Court

House Speaker John Boehner announced Wednesday that after consultation with the Bipartisan Leadership Advisory Group, he has directed the House General Counsel to initiate a legal defense of the Defense of Marriage Act.  Boehner had announced last week that he was convening the Advisory Group after the Obama administration decided that it would no longer defend DOMA's constitutionality. (See prior posting.) According to AHN, the Advisory Committee's vote in favor of defending the law was 3-2, along party lines. Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, criticized Boehner's action, saying: "The Republicans' jobs plan is a full employment project for right-wing lawyers bent on defending discrimination." [Thanks to Alliance Alert for the lead.]

State AG Challenge To Bush Era Conscience Rules Dropped Because of Revisions

A lawsuit filed in 2009 by a coalition of state attorneys general challenging the health care provider conscience rules promulgated by the Bush administration was dropped last week.  According to BNA Daily Report for Executives, the suit originally filed by the Connecticut attorney general and then joined by others was dropped because a Feb. 18, 2011 revision of the rule has rescinded the parts of the rule which the attorneys general found objectionable. The original suit alleged that the 2008 regulation limited women's access to necessary medical services, including emergency contraception.

5th Circuit: Disciplinary Exclusion of High School Student Did Not Violate His Free Exercise Rights

In C.H. II v. Rankin County School District, (5th Cir., March 4, 2011), the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a high school student's claim that his free exercise rights were violated by disciplinary action taken against him in connection with an auto body class.  After the student's misbehavior in the class-- offered by a community college to high school students-- the instructor and the director refused to allow the student to continue in the course unless he received counselling or at least unless he and his father signed an instructor-student contract outlining expected behavior. They refused, citing religious reasons. The court held that the school was merely enforcing a generally applicable rule of discipline against the student and that his constitutional rights were not violated.

U.S. Calls For Egypt To Prosecute Perpetrators In This Week's Muslim-Christian Violence

AFP reports that in Egypt on Tuesday violence broke out between Muslims and Christians in a working class district of Cairo as 1000 Christians protested the burning of a Coptic Christian church last week. Ultimately 13 people-- 7 of them Copts-- were killed in the ensuing fighting, while 140 people were injured. At the regular U.S. State Department press briefing yesterday (full text), spokesman Mark Toner said that the US. was concerned about the violence against Copts. He said: "We have urged the Egyptian transitional government to act swiftly to bring the perpetrators of that violence to justice." Sify paints a more complicated picture of events leading up to the violence, tracing it originally back to what began as a family quarrel over a love affair between a Christian man and a Muslim girl. It chronicles the stoning of cars, mainly by Christians, after four days of peaceful demonstrations over the church burning.

UPDATE: The March 14 Christian Post reports that Egypt's military is funding a project to restore the St. Mina and St. George churches that were burned by a Muslim mob after villagers discovered a romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman.

Philadelphia Archdiocese Suspends 21 Accused Priests

In the wake of a February grand jury report criticizing the procedures employed by the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia in dealing with priests accused of sexually abusing minors (see prior posting), the Archdiocese announced on Tuesday that it has placed 21 priests on leave. Further independent investigations will be undertaken in each case. Eight other priests will remain in their positions after an independent examination of the evidence against them found that no further investigation is warranted. A statement by Cardinal Justin Rigali explained that these actions followed from recommendations by veteran child abuse prosecutor, Gina Maisto Smith, who he enlisted to examine the cases of accused priests and the Archdiocese's procedures for handling allegations of sexual abuse of minors. Rigali concluded: "I wish to express again my sorrow for the sexual abuse of minors committed by any members of the Church, especially clergy. I am truly sorry for the harm done to the victims of sexual abuse, as well as to the members of our community who suffer as a result of this great evil and crime." The New York Times reports that a dozen protesters stood outside Ash Wednesday services in Philadelphia yesterday. One carried a sign urging that the identities of the 21 suspended priests be disclosed.

Chicago Faith-Based Foster Care Agencies Could Lose Funding For Refusing To Place Children With Same-Sex Couples

The Windy City Times reported yesterday that the recent passage of a same-sex civil union law by the state of Illinois (see prior posting) complicates the question of whether to permit faith-based foster care agencies that contract with the state to refuse to place foster children with same-sex couples. The civil union law becomes effective on June 1.  Three faith-based agencies in Chicago that receive $40 million each year from contracts with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services currently refuse to place children with LGBT couples.  Lutheran Children and Family Services says it will likely change its policy, but Catholic Charities and the Evangelical Child and Family Agency say they will not.

Report Charges Anti-Islamic Bias In Training of Law Enforcement and Security Personnel

Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank, on Tuesday released a report (executive summary ) titled  Manufacturing the Muslim Menace: Private Firms, Public Servants and the Threat to Rights and Security ( full text).  The lengthy report charges that local, state and federal government agencies fail to adequately monitor the quality of preparedness training provided to their law enforcement and domestic security employees by private vendors.  Focusing on three private organizations that offer anti-terrorism training, the report charges:

public servants are regularly presented with misleading, inflammatory, and dangerous information about the nature of the terror threat through highly politicized seminars, industry conferences, trade publications, and electronic media. In place of sound skills training and intelligence briefings, a vocal and influential sub-group of the private counterterrorism training industry markets conspiracy theories about secret jihadi campaigns to replace the U.S. Constitution with Sharia law, and effectively impugns all of Islam—a world religion with 1.3 billion adherents—as inherently violent and even terroristic.

The report also offers seven recommendations to improve the situation in the future.

Minnesota Trial Court Upholds State's Ban on Same-Sex Marriage

On Monday, a Hennepin County, Minnesota state court judge rejected a constitutional challenge to Minnesota's law that bars same-sex marriage. Tuesday's Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the trial court relied on a 1971 Minnesota Supreme Court decision-- Baker v. Nelson -- which rejected a similar challenge, and also relied on Minnesota's Defense of Marriage Act. The case decided this week was brought by three same-sex couples who had been denied marriage licenses. It claimed that denial of marriage to same-sex couples violated their due process, equal protection, religious freedom and free association rights.

House Hearing on Radicalization of U.S. Muslims Will Stream Live Thursday Morning

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King's controversial hearing on The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and that Community's Response, is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. EST on Thursday, March 10.  The hearing will be streamed live from this committee website. The list of witnesses has been released. They include 3 members of the House: Michigan's John Dingle, Minnesota's Keith Ellison (the first Muslim member of Congress), and Virginia's Frank Wolf. Others who will testify are: Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser (head of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy); Abdirizak Bihi (Director of the Somali Education and Social Advocacy Center); Melvin Bledsoe; and Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca.

UPDATE: A video of the hearings is archived on C-Span.

Suit Challenges Ban on Student's Distribution of Church Christmas Party Flyer

Last week, a federal court lawsuit was filed on behalf of a Cresco, Pennsylvania 5th grader who was barred by her school's principal from handing out to fellow students flyers inviting them to a Christmas party sponsored by her church.  The complaint (full text) in K.A. v. Pocono Mountain School District, (MD PA, filed 3/4/2011), alleges that plaintiff's 1st and 14th Amendment rights, as well as her rights under Pennsylvania's Religious Freedom Protection Act, were violated by rules that require school approval of materials from special interest groups and bar student speech that seeks to establish the supremacy of a particular religious denomination or point of view.  The suit alleges that the school has imposed a content-based restriction on the student since school district policies permit other students to distribute literature and invitations during non-instructional time and permit community groups to distribute flyers through a take-home flyer forum and a literature distribution table. It also alleges violation of the student's free exercise rights, vagueness and overbreadth of the school policies and establishment clause and equal protection violations. Alliance Defense Fund issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.

Suit Challenges Zoning Denial For Electronic Bible Verse Sign

On Monday a lawsuit was filed in federal district court against Chichester, New Hampshire by a non-profit organization that displays Christian scriptures on road signs on busy commuter streets. The complaint (full text) in Signs for Jesus v. Town of Chichester, (D NH, filed 3/7/2011), challenges the denial by the town's Planning Board of site plan approval for the display of an electronic message sign carrying Bible verses. The lawsuit alleges that the zoning denial violates the 1st and 14th Amendment rights of plaintiff, as well as the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Alliance Defense Fund issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.

Vatican UN Representative Encourages Religious Freedom

Zenit reports on the address on religious freedom given last week at the United Nations Human Rights Council by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, permanent representative of the Holy See to the U.N. offices in Geneva. Citing a study that says 75% of those killed because of religious hatred are Christians, Tomasi urged that states have a responsibility to create an environment that encourages religious freedom. He also said that the practice of religion needs to be defined broadly-- it includes more than just acts of worship.

Canadian Town's Public Schools-- All Catholic-- Do Not Offer Secular Alternative

All the schools in the Canadian town of Morinville, Alberta (near Edmonton) are government supported Catholic schools. Yesterday's Toronto Globe and Mail reports that some parent are complaining about the lack of a secular alternative.  Alberta law permits parents to take their children out of religion classes. However parents say religion permeates the entire curriculum of the schools. Provincial Education Minister Dave Hancock says he will meet with the Greater St. Albert Catholic Regional Division that runs the schools to encourage them to find a solution so parents that want a secular education for their children can obtain it.