The European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday that Jehovah’s Witnesses in Azerbaijan cannot be forced to serve in the military.
“Freedom of thought, conscience and religion [is] one of the cornerstones of a ‘democratic society’ within the meaning of the” European Convention on Human Rights, the court said in a press release announcing the decision.Here is the full text of the decision in French in In re Mammadov v. Azerbaijan, (ECHR, Oct. 17, 2019).
... [L]aw is being used as a battering ram to break down traditional moral values and to establish moral relativism as a new orthodoxy....
First, either through legislation but more frequently through judicial interpretation, secularists have been continually seeking to eliminate laws that reflect traditional moral norms.
At first, this involved rolling back laws that prohibited certain kinds of conduct. Thus, the watershed decision legalizing abortion. And since then, the legalization of euthanasia. The list goes on.
More recently, we have seen the law used aggressively to force religious people and entities to subscribe to practices and policies that are antithetical to their faith.
The problem is not that religion is being forced on others. The problem is that irreligion and secular values are being forced on people of faith.
This reminds me of how some Roman emperors could not leave their loyal Christian subjects in peace but would mandate that they violate their conscience by offering religious sacrifice to the emperor as a god.
Similarly, militant secularists today do not have a live and let live spirit - they are not content to leave religious people alone to practice their faith. Instead, they seem to take a delight in compelling people to violate their conscience.
Here, the Court has already fully considered Defendants’ RFRA arguments in the course of ruling on Defendants’ motions to dismiss. In its ruling, the Court determined that the Government has shown a compelling interest and that it is utilizing the least restrictive means...., Because this determination has been made as a matter of law, and Defendants may not present a RFRA defense to the jury at trial....
... I’m especially telling the truth about the dire condition of religious freedom around the world. America has a proud history of religious freedom, and we want jealously to guard it here. But around the world, more than 80% of mankind lives in areas where religious freedom is suppressed or denied in its entirety.
The Chinese Communist Party ... is detaining and abusing more than one million Uighur Muslims in internment camps in the Xinjiang. ...
So Christian pastors today are being unlawfully arrested, beaten, detained inside the Islamic Republic of Iran. We need to speak about this.
Christian areas in northern Iraq that I’ve had the privilege to visit have been ravaged by ISIS, part of a greater trend of Christian persecution all across the Middle East.
And so the truth – for the past two years we’ve spoken the truth. We’ve hosted ministerials.... We’ve told the world about these shortfalls and the success of nations when individuals are given their basic human dignity to practice their conscience, their faith, or to choose no faith if they so choose all around the world.
Although Plaintiff is a resident of Flagstaff..., Plaintiff did not allege that he has had direct contact with the Grand Menorah Lighting at City Hall, or any other religious ceremony purportedly held in City Hall. According to the Complaint, Plaintiff’s contact with the Grand Menorah Lighting at City Hall has, at most, been via newspaper articles reporting the “Flagstaff Hanukkah tradition.”.... While Plaintiff alleges that he has been “quite concerned” and “very disturbed” by the Grand Menorah Lighting at City Hall, ... —without more, the injury asserted by Plaintiff is too generalized and remote to confer standing....The court concluded that the same test for standing applies to both plaintiff's Establishment Clause claim and his claim under the no-aid provision of the state constitution.
According to the EEOC's lawsuit ..., a call center employee at Center One's Beaver Falls, Pa., location, who is an adherent of Messianic Judaism, sought a reasonable accommodation of his religious beliefs and practice that he abstain from work on days of religious observance.... Center One imposed disciplinary points against the Messianic Jewish employee for his absences in observance of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Center One required that the employee provide a certification from a religious leader or religious organization "on letterhead" as a precondition of granting him time off as a reasonable accommodation and imposed disciplinary points against the Messianic Jewish employee for his absences in observance of those religious holidays...
On this day, as Jews around the world stand in front of the open ark, facing the holy Torah and asking God’s forgiveness, Melania and I pray that He may seal you in the Book of Life for the coming year and grant His people a year of sweetness and plenty.Yom Kippur begins at sundown tonight.
1. Whether the agencies had statutory authority under the ACA and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ..., to expand the conscience exemption to the contraceptive-coverage mandate.
2. Whether the agencies’ decision to forgo notice and opportunity for public comment before issuing the interim final rules rendered the final rules—which were issued after notice and comment—invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act....
3. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming a nationwide preliminary injunction barring implementation of the final rules.[Thanks to Tom Rutledge for the lead.]