Texas State Board of Educations Asks AG To Permit Them To Review Textbooks

According to the Dallas Morning News yesterday, two members of the Texas State Board of Education have asked Texas Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott to reconsider a 1996 Attorney General's Opinion (Opinion No. DM-424). That opinion said that said the Board had no authority to screen school textbooks other than for factual errors. The Board members would like to be able to prescribe general textbook content standards. (Full text of 1/6/06 request for new AG opinion.) A bill passed by the legislature in 1995 took away the Board's authority to review textbooks, and several attempts since then to change the law have been rejected by the state legislature. Social conservatives would like to restore the board's authority to review the way in which books present issues like evolution, birth control and sexual abstinence, and interpretations of history. Texas requirements often impact the version of textbooks that are marketed throughout the country.

Cartoons In Danish Paper Spur Yemen's Parliament and Other Arab States To Act

Yemen's Parliament has stepped into a dispute over the propriety of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed published last September in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and reprinted this month in the Norwegian publication, Magazinet. (See prior posting.) The Yemen Observer reported yesterday that Parliament's Committee of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has criticized the publication of the 12 cartoons which were said to mock the Prophet. The Committee called on the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to ask the Danish and Norwegian governments to apologize. Online petitions and websites have been launched to protest the cartoons and call for a boycott of Danish products. The Observer article reprints the full text of a letter which readers are urged to send to Danish ambassadors around the world.

This morning, Bloomberg reported that in the West Bank, the Danish flag was burnt in protest over the cartoons. In Gaza, protesters demanded that Danes and Norwegians be sent home until an apology is forthcoming. Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen are now boycotting Danish goods. And both Saudi Arabia and Libya have closed their embassies in Copenhagen.

Arab concern began to grow when Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen refused last October to meet ambassadors of 11 Muslim countries to discuss censuring the Jyllands-Posten paper. In December, a Danish umbrella group of 21 Muslim organizations sent a delegation to the Middle East to rally support against Denmark. The group met Muslim leaders including the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit and the General Secretary of the Arab League, Amre Moussa. According to Newspaperindex.com, a complaint from the Organization of Islamic Conferences led Louise Arbour - United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - to appoint two UN experts on racism to carry out a detailed investigation into what Arbour characterizes as a "disrespect for belief."

Newspaperindex.com has also made the controversial cartoons available online.

Three Prisoner Free Exercise Decisions Become Available

Opinions in three prisoner free-exercise of religion cases decided over the last few months have just been released.

In Orafan v. Goord, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2931 (ND NY, January 17, 2006), five Shiite Muslim prisoners from three different New York facilities sued claiming that furnishing them only a unified Muslim religious service rather than a separate Shiite Jumah service violated their state and federal free exercise rights, violated RLUIPA and amounted to an establishment of religion. The court rejected all plaintiffs' claims except for a limited free exercise claim based on discriminatory treatment and comments by prison chaplains acting in their administrative capacities.

In Boles v. Neet, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39662 (D. Colo., Nov. 30, 2005), a Colorado federal district court reviewed the recommendation of a magistrate judge (2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39655) in a case in which an Orthodox Jewish prisoner complained that the was not permitted to wear his yarmulke and tallit katan while he was being transported outside a state prison facility for medical treatment or eye surgery. Subsequently, however, the Colorado Department of Corrections reversed its policy. The court, nevertheless, permitted plaintiff to proceed with his First Amendment free exercise claim for damages stemming from physical injury, mental anguish and emotional distress from the infringement of his religious practice. However, the court held that damages, as opposed to injunctive or declaratory relief, were not available under RLUIPA.

In Newsome v. Ozmint, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39659 (D. SC, Nov. 29, 2005), a federal magistrate judge in South Carolina recommended dismissal of general claims by two Muslim prisoners that their free exercise and equal protection rights were being infringed because they were not permitted to congregate for prayer five times a day in the prison chapel area. Prison officials indicated that the limitations on access to the chapel stemmed from past security problems, and that arrangements for prayer twice a day in day rooms, as well as Friday congregational prayer in the chapel, have been made.

Iraq Internal Fights Turn More Sectarian

In Iraq, the line between political divisions and religious ones is difficult to discern. However, this past week end according to an Associated Press report, internal conflicts seemed to take on a more explicitly sectarian tone. Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the main Sunni Muslim bloc in the next parliament, said he opposed giving Shiite Muslims the key top posts in the Interior and Defense ministries. "Mosques and houses are empty because clerics and ordinary men are being chased as if there was a sectarian cleansing in Baghdad," al-Dulaimi said. However, the head of the Shiite militia, the Badr Brigade, said that Shiite religious parties would "never surrender" the key interior and defense ministries. Also over the week end, car bombs exploded in synchronized attacks outside at least four churches (Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican) in Baghdad and Kirkuk.

Politicians "Play the 'God' Card"

As part of its series Focus on Faith, today's USA Today carries an opinion piece by Tom Krattenmaker titled Playing the 'God' Card. He argues that "religious-talking Republicans have brought ... hypocrisy charges on themselves in their rush to position their party as God's chosen." He continues, "It hasn't taken long for events to demonstrate how silly God's-on-our-side political rhetoric can end up looking when things go south." But, he says, "Democrats also have gone to the religion well in their quest for political gain and have sometimes looked just as ridiculous."

Sectarian Prayers Still Used In Some California Public Meetings

In 2002, in Rubin v. City of Burbank, a California appellate court struck down as unconstitutional sectarian prayer at city council meetings. However a recent investigation by the North County Times has discovered that several governmental bodies are still opening their sessions with prayers that specifically refer to Jesus. Meetings of the Temecula and Murrieta city councils and the Menifee Union and Perris Union High School governing boards are often begun with sectarian invocations. Paloma Valley High School teacher Gail Simpson said, "I have a hard time as a teacher explaining to my government students why it's not a violation of (the separation of) church and state. All I say to them (students) is, 'Yes, you're right, it does seem to violate the separation of church and state, but they're the school board and they can do what they want to do'."

Revisionist View Of Bin Laden As Religious Reformer Suggested

In a thoughtful, if controversial, article in yesterday's Los Angeles Times, author Reza Aslan suggests that Osama Bin Laden should be understood as a radical reformer of Islam, with parallels to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. Here are some excerpts:

In 100 years ... we may look back on Bin Laden not only as a murderous criminal but as one of the principal figures of ... the Islamic reformation. Indeed, historians may one day place Bin Laden alongside 16th century Christian revolutionaries ... as a "reformation radical" who pushed the principle of religious individualism to terrifying limits. ...

[A]s Muslims have increasingly been forced to regard themselves ... as citizens of individual nation-states, a sense of individualism has begun to infuse this essentially communal faith. ...[T]he authority of traditional clerical institutions over their Muslim communities has been eroding. ... Muslims now have access through the Internet (an invention whose role in the Islamic reformation parallels that of the printing press in the Christian Reformation) to the religious opinions of myriad Islamic activists, academics, self-styled preachers, militants and cult leaders throughout the world who are, for better or worse, reshaping the faith....

Like Luther, Bin Laden is concerned above all else with "purifying" his own religious community.... Bin Laden's primary target is neither Christians nor Jews (both of whom he refers to as "the far enemy"), but rather those Muslims who do not share his puritanical view of Islam and who, as a consequence, make up the overwhelming majority of Al Qaeda's victims.

Bin Laden has also deliberately placed himself in direct opposition to the institutional authorities of his religion by repeatedly issuing fatwas and making judgments on Islamic law — things that, according to Islamic tradition, only a cleric affiliated with one of Islam's recognized schools of law has the authority to do.

Even more striking is his fundamental reinterpretation of jihad: What was once considered a collective duty to be carried out solely at the behest of a qualified cleric has become a radically individualistic obligation totally divorced from institutional authority....

RLUIPA Upheld Against Spending Clause Challenge

In Madison v. Ritter, (WD Va., Jan. 25, 2006) a Virginia federal district court rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the prisoner -protection provisions of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The court held that RLUIPA is valid Spending Clause legislation that is not barred by the Tenth, Eleventh or Fourteenth Amendments, the separation of powers doctrine, or the Establishment Clause. However, the court also certified its constitutional holdings for interlocutory review by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Legislative Prayer Offered By Imam

The Roanoke Times reports on the Virginia legislature-- Friday's opening prayer in the House of Delegates was offered by a Roanoke Muslim imam, Ibrahim Hamidullah. "We are mainstream Muslims," said Hamidullah, who converted to Islam at the age of 21. "We're community-minded, we're not separatists."

Hamas Will Introduce Changes Based On Islamic Law In PA

Today the Toronto Globe and Mail reports that in the Palestinian Authority, Hamas has set out its domestic agenda for the first time since its surprise victory in Parliamentary elections this week. That agenda includes changes impelled by religious law. Sheik Mohammed Abu Teir, number 2 on the Hamas list of candidates, said that the new government will quickly make Islamic sharia "a source" of law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and will overhaul the Palestinian education system to separate boys and girls and introduce a more Islamic curriculum. He quickly added, however, that alcohol will not be banned and women will not be required to cover their heads when outdoors. He said, "We are centrists, we are against any kind of extremism. The motto that we operate on is that in religion, you cannot force people." He said that Palestinian Christians have nothing to fear from the changes.

UPDATE: Sunday's Washington Post carries a related article by Scott Wilson, Some Palestinians See End of Secular Dream.

California Teachers Have Religious Objections To Classroom Posters

In California, five high school teachers last week objected on religious grounds to displaying posters in their classroom that were designed to prevent bullying of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students, though several of the teachers have now relented in the face of a school board order from last December. The banner, designed by the Gay-Straight Alliance at San Leandro High School south of Oakland, shows a rainbow flag and reads "This is a safe place to be who you are."

The banners, along with faculty training about racism and homophobia, were required in the 2002 settlement of a lawsuit filed by a San Leandro High teacher who was disciplined after teaching those topics in his honors English class in the mid-1990s. Various aspects of the story were reported Wednesday and Thursday by the San Francisco Chronicle, WorldNet Daily, and 365Gay (1 , 2). School principal Amy Furtado said that her expectation is compliance by next week's deadline for hanging the posters. Superintendent Christine Lim who is responsible for the policy said, "This is not about religion, sex or a belief system. This is about educators making sure our schools are safe for our children, regardless of their sexual orientation." [Thanks to Rick Duncan via Religionlaw listserv for the information.]

Initial Hearing In Italy On Charges of False Assertions About Jesus

In Viterbo, Italy, according to the AP, a hearing was held on Friday to determine whether a parish priest should stand trial on alleged violations of two Italian laws-- "abuse of popular belief" and "impersonation". (See prior posting.) The widely noted case involves an atheist, Luigi Cascioli, who filed a criminal complaint accusing parish priest Enrico Righi, accusing him of deceiving people with the fable that Christ existed. Lawyers for Righi and Cascioli made their arguments in a brief closed hearing before Judge Gaetano Mautone. Righi's attorney, Severo Bruno, told reporters that his client is innocent because "he said and wrote what he has the duty to say and write." He told the judge that Righi was not asserting a historical fact when he wrote of Jesus' existence, but rather "an expression of theological principles." "When Don Righi spoke about Christ's humanity ... he was affirming that he needs to be considered as a man. What his name is, where he comes from or who his parents are is secondary," he said.

New Law and Religion Scholarship

The Journal of Law and Religion (Hamline Law School), Vol XX, No.2, has recently appeared. The table of contents is available online.

From Bepress:
Rishi S. Bagga, Living by the Sword: The Free Exercise of Religion and the Sikh Struggle for the Right to Carry a Kirpan, (Jan. 2006).

Today Is International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is the first annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day honoring victims of the Holocaust. Last November, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 60/7, designating January 27 as the date for this remembrance. The resolution was introduced by Israel and co-sponsored by 90 other nations. However, the resolution nowhere mentions Jews as the unique victims of the Holocaust. The resolution's text rejects Holocaust denial and urges member states to develop Holocaust education programs. According to a U.N. press release, January 27 was chosen because it is the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum website covers relevant activities from around the world.

January 27 competes with three other commemoration dates. The most widely recognized date until now has been Yom Hashoah-- the 27th of Nisan on the Hebrew calendar. This date was set by the Israeli Knesset in 1951. Here is an account by Jennifer Rosenberg on how that date was chosen:

The Zionists in Israel, many of whom had fought in the ghettos or as partisans, wanted to commemorate the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising - April 19, 1943. But this date on the Hebrew calendar is the 15th of Nissan - the beginning of Passover, a very important and happy holiday. Orthodox Jews objected to this date.
For two years, the date was debated. Finally, in 1950, compromises and bargaining began. The 27th of Nissan was chosen, which falls beyond Passover but within the time span of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Orthodox Jews still did not like this date because it was a day of mourning within the traditionally happy month of Nissan. As a final effort to compromise, it was decided that if the 27th of Nissan would affect Shabbat (fall on Friday or Saturday), then it would be moved to the following Sunday.

On April 12, 1951, the Knesset (Israel's parliament) proclaimed Yom Hashoah U'Mered HaGetaot (Holocaust and Ghetto Revolt Remembrance Day) to be the 27th of Nissan. The name later became known as Yom Hashoah Ve Hagevurah (Devastation and Heroism Day) and even later simplified to Yom Hashoah.

Some Jews choose one of two other dates, as described by Rabbi David Golinkin:

The Orthodox Rabbinate of Israel attempted to promote the Tenth of Tevet -- a traditional fast day commemorating the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem in ancient times -- as the "General Kaddish Day" in which Jews should recite the memorial prayer and light candles in memory of those who perished in the Holocaust. Several ultra-Orthodox rabbis have recommended adding piyyutim (religious poems) that were written by contemporary rabbis to the liturgy of the Ninth of Av, and many communities follow this custom. Ismar Schorsch, the chancellor of the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary, has also suggested moving Holocaust commemorations to Tisha b'Av, because that is the day in which Judaism ritualizes its most horrible destructions.

Charities Protest Provision In Pending Tax Relief Bill

On January 20, a group of over 60 charitable organizations, including many religious groups, signed a letter addressed to the House Ways & Means and Senate Finance Committees opposing a provision in S. 2020, the Tax Relief Act of 2005. The bill, as passed by the Senate, will now go to Conference with the House. While the bill creates a number of incentives to charitable giving, including a charitable deduction for non-itemizers, it has one provision that could discourage giving. The new law would permit charitable deductions (even by itemizers) only for contributions exceeding $210 per year ($420 for joint filers). The organizations protested that "The withholding of a deduction implies that a smaller gift is not substantial, not a sacrifice worthy of recognition. But for many donors and charities, smaller gifts are extremely significant." The full text of the letter is available online, and a report on it appears in the January 25 BNA Daily Tax Reporter (subscription required). [Thanks to Steven H. Sholk for the information.]

Mass. Gov. Romney Discusses His Religion and 2008 Presidential Chances

Yesterday, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, a possible Republican candidate for President in 2008, discussed with reporters the impact of his Mormon faith on his political chances. The Knight Ridder Newspapers quote Romney as saying that his Mormon faith would not matter to most voters, though polls show that between 11% and 17% would not vote for a Mormon. Romney said that he is likely to have support from most evangelical Christians, since they are primarily looking for a person of faith to vote for. Romney also discussed his views on a number of issues, including abortion.

Saudi Officials Seek Clerical Permission For Changes In Hajj To Promote Safety

Saudi Arabian authorities are seeking ways to prevent further deaths and injuries like those caused by a stampede during the recent hajj pilgrimage, according to Wednesday's Washington Examiner. Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz asked Muslim clerics to find religious dispensations that would give pilgrims more time to perform the hajj stoning ritual, currently lasting three days from noon until sunset. A solution that would prevent situations like that which caused 363 deaths this year would be to permit the ritual to be performed throughout the day, instead of just during the 5 1/2 hours between noon and sunset. Some members of the Saudi council of top clerics have approved extending the hours of the stoning ritual, but its head, grand mufti Abdul-Aziz al-Sheik, says that alternative violates Islamic law.

British University Bars Christian Group For Discrimination

Wednesday's Birmingham Post reports on a dispute in Britain that is reminiscent of recent battles on a number of U.S. campuses. (See prior postings 1, 2 .) Birmingham University's Student Guild has frozen the assets of the Evangelical Christian Union, and prohibited it from using university facilities for meetings, because the student group refuses to admit non-Christians to membership. The Student Union Guild has demanded that the Christian group amend its constitution to allow people of all faiths to become members and sit on its leadership body. The Guild also objects to the fact that the group's constitution uses the words "men" and "women" instead of "persons", claiming it discriminates against transsexuals. Pod Bhogal, communications director for Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship, said: "In all our years of working with hundreds of higher education establishments, this action by Birmingham's guild is unique." (Press release.) The Student Guild, however, said it was merely enforcing the 1994 Education Act that prohibits discrimination by student groups.

Justice Breyer Discusses Establishment Clause

Yesterday's Washington Jewish Week carries an interesting report on a dialogue with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer held last Sunday at Kesher Israel Congregation, a synagogue in the District of Columbia. Breyer said the Establishment Clause was designed not as an "absolute separation" of church and state, but as a way to "minimize social conflict based on religion." He traced the language of the Establishment Clause to "the wars of religion" between Catholics and Protestants in 17th-century Europe. He pointed out that the clause's interpretation has evolved in the 20th century, as the country has changed and immigrants introduced dozens of new religions. "The Founders did engage in a lot of activities that would be forbidden today under ... current interpretations of the Establishment Clause", he said, because they lived in a generally homogeneouss nation. While the court's view of the Establishment Clause has changed, Breyer believes it has still stayed true to the original values that the Founders intended.

When confronted with a question about Jewish law, Breyer said that he didn't know that much about it, quipping that he was "bar mitzvahed in a Reform congregation." He added, however, that he believes the profession of law is squarely in the Jewish tradition of social justice.

Newly Elected Canadian Prime Minister Acknowledges God In Victory Speech

Newly-elected Conservative Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper broke with tradition of the past 12 years and ended his election night victory speech by saying "God Bless Canada". Yesterday's LifeSite News reports that Bishop Frederick Henry of the Calgary , Alberta Diocese praised Harper's new willingness to recognize religion in the public sphere.