Objective coverage of church-state and religious liberty developments, with extensive links to primary sources.
Friday, August 10, 2012
German Constitutional Court Says Civil Partners Must Get Same Treatment As Spouses In Tax Law
Friday, December 15, 2017
Indonesia's Constitutional Court Refuses To Criminalize All Sex Outside of Marriage
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Britain's Supreme Court Denies Christian Marriage Registrar Permission To Appeal
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Suits Against Kim Davis Move Ahead
Monday, June 06, 2011
Recent Articles of Interest
- Alexander Volokh, Prison Vouchers, (University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Forthcoming).
- Nicholas Walter, The Status of Religious Arbitration in the United States and Canada, (Santa Clara Law Review, Forthcoming).
- Sadaf Mehmood, Islam and Modern Ideologies, (2011).
- Julio C. Colon, Choice of Law and Islamic Finance, (Texas International Law Journal, Vol. 46, No. 2, 2011).
- Edward A. Zelinsky, Winn and the Inadvisability of Constitutionalizing Tax Expenditure Analysis, (Yale Law Journal Online, Vol. 121, p. 25, 2011).
- Mary Jean Dolan, The Cross National Memorial: At the Intersection of Speech and Religion, (Case Western Reserve Law Review, Vol. 61, No. 4, 2011).
- Michael Sant'Ambrogio and Sylvia A. Law, Baehr v. Lewin and the Long Road to Marriage Equality, (University of Hawaii Law Review, Vol. 33, 2011).
- Jackie Gardina, The Defense of Marriage Act, Same-Sex Relationships and the Bankruptcy Code, (May 23, 2011).
- Carolyn M. Evans and Beth Gaze, Discrimination by Religious Schools: Views from the Coal Face, (Melbourne Univeristy Law Review, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2010).
- Conference: Laicite in Comparative Perspective. Foreword by Mark L. Movsesian; panel participation by Michael Simon, Mark L. Movsesian, and Marc O. DeGirolami, moderators; Douglas Laycock, Mark L. Movsesian, Nathalie Caron, Blandine Chelini-Pont, Rosemary C. Salomone, Emmanuel Tawil, Nina J. Crimm, Javier Martinez-Torr¢n and Elizabeth Zoller, panelists. 49 Journal of Catholic Legal Studies 1-142 (2010).
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Paper Profiles Mat Staver and His Organzation Liberty Counsel
The maelstrom that formed earlier this month around Davis — an Apostolic Christian who said she was acting on her faith — involves factions Staver knows well. Liberty Counsel, a Maitland-based legal organization he founded, has spent decades representing the conservative vanguard in debates over abortion, gay marriage and religion's place in the public sphere.
In the process, the nonprofit has ballooned from a tiny venture collecting less than $200,000 in yearly donations to a multipronged organization that hauled in more than $4 million in the 2013 tax year, employs 10 staff attorneys, runs an outreach to Israel and even released its own feature film last year.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
British Marriage Registrar Loses Discrimination Appeal
BBC News reported on the decision on Friday. The Christian Institute issued a release stating that claimant Lillian Ladele plans to appeal to the Court of Appeal.The claimant’s complaint on this score is not that she was treated differently from others; rather it was that she was not treated differently when she ought to have been.... That is a complaint about a failure to accommodate her difference, rather than a complaint that she is being discriminated against because of that difference....
[P]art of the commitment to the promotion of equal opportunities and fighting discrimination is that employees should not be permitted to refuse to provide services to the community for discriminatory reasons.... [R]equiring the staff to act in a non-discriminatory manner was entirely rationally connected with the legitimate objective....The council were entitled to take the view that they were not willing to connive in that practice by relieving Ms Ladele of these duties, notwithstanding that her refusal was the result of her strong and genuinely held Christian beliefs. The council were entitled to take the view that this would be inconsistent with their strong commitment to the principles of nondiscrimination and would send the wrong message to staff and service users....
The claimant's beliefs were strong and genuine and not all of management treated them with the sensitivity which they might have done. However, we are satisfied that the Tribunal erred in finding that any of the grounds of discrimination was made out.
Friday, January 15, 2010
DC Court Upholds Election Board's Rejection of Initiative To Define Marriage
Monday, December 02, 2013
Pro-Marriage Equality Protesters Fined One Cent For Trespassing
Monday, June 02, 2014
Recent Articles of Interest
- Jeffrey A. Redding, Marriage ≠ Marriage: Querying the Relevance of Equality to the Interstate Recognition of Same-Sex Relationships, (University of Miami Law Review, Forthcoming).
- D. Brian Dennison, Faith Frieda Letacie & Heather M. Pate, Confronting Child Sacrifice in Uganda: A Multi-Layered View, (Kabarak University Law Review, Forthcoming).
- Kevin J. Murphy, Administering the Ministerial Exception Post-Hosanna-Tabor: Why Contract Claims Should Not Be Barred, (Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, Vol. 28, No. 1, 2014).
- Brian D. Galle, How Do Nonprofit Firms Respond to Tax Policy?, (May 29, 2014).
- Elizabeth A. Clark, Liberalism In Decline: Legislative Trends Limiting Religious Freedom In Russia and Central Asia, 22 Transnational Law & Contemporary Problems 297-342 (2013).
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Advocacy Groups Have Varied Reactions To Tuesday's Election Results
After eight years of unprecedented access to the White House and (until 2006) in the halls of Congress, Religious Right organizations are about to lose a lot of clout with much of official Washington and could see their influence at the national level diminished. But it’s unlikely any of these organizations will close down. Rather, they will organize to defeat individual-freedom initiatives put forward by President Barack Obama, and they will place more emphasis on state and local governments as a way to press their agenda forward.Yesterday's Christian Post reported that Christian groups had varied reactions to Obama's win. The National Council of Churches USA issued a statement congratulating Obama and promising to work with him "to respond to the realities that a loving God places before us each day." Looking in a different direction, Focus on the Family took heart in the fact that Democrats failed to win the veto-proof 60 seats in the Senate. They were also encouraged by the passage of anti-gay marriage amendments in three states. The group said that these results "give values voters reason to stay tuned to development on Capitol Hill."
Yesterday's New York Times reports similarly that the approval of the bans on gay marriage, along with passage in Arkansas of a provision intended to bar gays and lesbians from adopting children, were "a stunning victory for religious conservatives, who had little else to celebrate on an Election Day." It points out that California will still be able to offer civil unions to same-sex couples.
Thursday, October 04, 2018
Ministerial Exception In Hostile Work Environment Cases
[W]hen a minister brings a claim that does not challenge a tangible employment action, then whether the First Amendment bars the claim depends on a case-by-case analysis on the nature of the claim, the extent of the intrusion on religious doctrine, and the extent of the entanglement with church governance required by the particular litigation. If the nature of the claim would require that a court take stance on a disputed religious doctrine, then that weighs in favor of First Amendment protection for the church....
If, on the other hand, no religious justification is offered at all (for a nontangible employment action), then there would be little or no risk of violating the Free Exercise Clause....
... [L]itigation over Reverend Dada’s alleged harassment based on Demkovich’s sex, sexual orientation, and marital status would excessively entangle the government in religion. To start, the Archdiocese offers a religious justification for the alleged derogatory remarks and other harassment....
... [H]arassing statements and conduct are motivated by an official Church position (or at least the Archdiocese would defend the case on those grounds). Of course, regulating how the official opposition is expressed is not as directly intrusive as outright punishing the Church for holding that position (which a federal court cannot do). But it comes close, and must weigh in favor of barring the claim under the Religion Clauses.
Friday, July 03, 2015
ACLU Sues Kentucky Clerk Who Is Refusing To Issue Marriage Licenses
Monday, December 12, 2011
Recent Articles of Interest
- Nathan B. Oman, How to Judge Shari'a Contracts: A Guide to Islamic Marriage Agreements in American Courts, (Utah Law Review, Vol. 2011, No. 1, p. 287, 2011).
- Douglas NeJaime, Marriage Inequality: Religious Exemptions and the Production of Sexual Orientation Discrimination, (California Law Review, Forthcoming).
- Kishor Kunal, Freedom of Religion in Secular State, (December 6, 2011).
- Munir Ahmad Mughal, English Translation of Ibn Hashsham's Siratun-Nabi (Peace Be Upon Him), (December 11, 2011).
- Steven Aiello, 'Islam and Social Justice in Iran': The Merging of Economic, Political and Religious Dogmas in the Iranian Revolution, (December 6, 2011).
- Jeffrey A. Parness, Statutory Parenthood for Same-Sex Partners, (Illinois Bar Journal, Vol. 99, p. 636, December 2011).
- Mohammed Khnifer, Goldman Sachs Claims that its $2 billion Sukuk Programme Follows a Murabaha Structure, Mohammed Khnifer Claims Otherwise – That it's Nothing More than Areverse Tawarruq,(December 6, 2011).
Monday, September 27, 2021
Britain's Court of Appeal Rejects Christian Agency's Ban On Same-Sex Couples Becoming Foster Parents
In The Queen (On the Application of Cornerstone (Northeast) Adoption and Fostering Services, Ltd. v. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills (OFSTED), (EWCA, Sept. 24, 2021), England's Court of Appeal held that Cornerstone, a Christian foster care agency, violated the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998 when it required clients with which it placed children to:
Set a high standard in personal morality which recognises that God's gift of sexual intercourse is to be enjoyed exclusively within Christian marriage; abstain from all sexual sins including immodesty, the viewing of pornography, fornication, adultery, cohabitation, homosexual behaviour and wilful violation of your birth sex.
The court said in part:
The detrimental impact on society and on individuals of discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation has led the law to set a demanding standard of justification.... [W]e should be slow to accept that prohibiting fostering agencies from discriminating against homosexuals is a disproportionate limitation on their right to manifest their religion....
... [T]here can be no doubting the value of its work or the sincerity of [Cornerstone's] motives. However, in order to justify a policy of this nature, it needed to provide credible evidence that there would otherwise be a seriously detrimental impact on carers and children. The evidence it actually advanced did not go beyond the level of general assertion.... [W]hile I would not rule out the possibility of an organisation in this position putting up a substantial evidence-based case on justification, Cornerstone simply did not do that....
[Thanks to Law & Religion UK for the lead.]
Monday, November 03, 2008
Ballot Measures In 6 States Watched By Religious Groups
- Florida- Proposal 2- Marriage Protection Amendment.
- California- Proposition 8- Initiative to Eliminate Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.
- Arizona- Proposition 102- Constitutional Amendment Relating to Marriage.
- Michigan- Proposal 08-12- Proposed Constitutional Amendment on Human Embryo and Embryonic Stem Cell Research.
- South Dakota- Initiated Measure 11- To Prohibit Abortions Except in Cases Where the Mother's Life or Health Is At a Substantial and Irreversible Risk, and In Cases of Reported Rape and Incest.
- Colorado- Amendment 48- Definition of Person.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
California Brings Back "Bride" and "Groom" On Marriage Licenses
Friday, April 22, 2016
6th Circuit Dismisses County Clerk's Suit As Moot
On December 22, 2015, the newly-elected Governor of Kentucky issued an executive order revising Kentucky's marriage license form to eliminate the need for the name and signature of the county clerk. Davis's counsel issued a press release stating that the revised form will permit Davis and the other county clerks "to do their jobs without compromising religious values and beliefs."The Louisville Courier-Journal reports on the decision.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Democratic 2012 Platform: Provisions on Faith In America, Civil Rights, and Social Issues
Faith has always been a central part of the American story, and it has been a driving force of progress and justice throughout our history. We know that our nation, our communities, and our lives are made vastly stronger and richer by faith and the countless acts of justice and mercy it inspires. Faith- based organizations will always be critical allies in meeting the challenges that face our nation and our world – from domestic and global poverty, to climate change and human trafficking. People of faith and religious organizations do amazing work in communities across this country and the world, and we believe in lifting up and valuing that good work, and finding ways to support it where possible. We believe in constitutionally sound, evidence-based partnerships with faith-based and other non-profit organizations to serve those in need and advance our shared interests. There is no conflict between supporting faith-based institutions and respecting our Constitution, and a full commitment to both principles is essential for the continued flourishing of both faith and country.The Platform supports "comprehensive immigration reform that supports our economic goals and reflects our values as both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants;" "policies that truly value families," and "a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay." It also provides:
We support marriage equality and support the movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples. We also support the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference.The Platform Section on Civil Rights says in part:
At the core of the Democratic Party is the principle that no one should face discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability status. Democrats support our civil rights statutes and we have stepped up enforcement of laws that prohibit discrimination in the workplace and other settings. We are committed to protecting all communities from violence. We are committed to ending racial, ethnic, and religious profiling and requiring federal, state, and local enforcement agencies to take steps to eliminate the practice....
...we must continue our work to prevent vicious bullying of young people and support LGBT youth... The Administration has said that the word 'family' in immigration includes LGBT relationships in order to protect bi-national families threatened with deportation.The Platform also contains sections on "Combating Human Trafficking" and on "Gay Rights As Human Rights."
Monday, October 03, 2011
Recent Law Review Review Articles
- Marie Ashe, Privacy and Prurience: An Essay on American Law, Religion, and Women, (American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 51, p. 461, 2011).
- Katherine Spencer, Mahr as Contract: Internal Pluralism and External Perspectives, (Oñati Socio-Legal Series, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2011).
- Paul Horwitz, Act III of the Ministerial Exception, (Northwestern University Law Review, Forthcoming).
- Richard W. Painter, The Moral Responsibilities of Investment Bankers, (University of St. Thomas Law Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, 2010).
- Samuel T. Grover, Religious Conscience Exemptions to the PPACA Health Insurance Mandate, (American Journal of Law and Medicine, Vol. 37, No. 4, 2011).
- Leslie C. Griffin, Ordained Discrimination: The Cases Against the Ministerial Exception, (U of Houston Law Center No. 2011-A-9, Sept. 30, 2011).
- Susan E. Hauser, More Than Abstract Justice: The Defense of Marriage Act and the Equal Treatment of Same-Sex Married Couples Under Section 302(A) of the Bankruptcy Code, (American Bankruptcy Law Journal, Forthcoming).
- Anita Bernstein, Toward More Parsimony and Transparency in 'The Essentials of Marriage', (Michigan State Law Review, Vol. 81, 2011).
- Caroline Mala Corbin, The Irony of Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC, (Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, Forthcoming).
- John Garvey, Intellect and Virtue: The Idea of a Catholic University, 60 Catholic University Law Review 563-573 (2011).
- Samuel J. Levine, Second Annual Holocaust Remembrance Lecture at Washington University. Jewish Law From Out of the Depths: Tragic Choices in the Holocaust, 10 Washington University Global Studies Law Review 133-142 (2011).