Religion & Law

Here is (the eminent) Prof. Joseph Weiler's argument before the European Court of Human Rights in the Italian crucifix case.  Here is a taste:

16. In today?s Europe countries have opened their gates to many new residents and citizens. We owe them all the guarantees of the Convention. We owe the decency and welcome and non discrimination. But the message of tolerance towards the Other should not be translated into a message of intolerance towards one?s own identity, and the legal imperative of the Convention should not extend the justified requirement that the State guarantee negative and positive religious freedom, to the unjustified and startling proposition that the State divest itself of part of its cultural identity simply because the artefacts of such identity may be religious or of religious origin.

17. The position adopted by the Chamber is not an expression of the pluralism manifest by the Convention system, but an expression of the values of the laique State. To extend it to the entire Convention system would represent, with great respect, the Americanization of Europe. Americanization in two respects: First a single and unique rule for everyone, and second, a rigid, American style, separation of Church and State, as if the people of those Members whose State identity is not laique, cannot be trusted to live by the principles of tolerance and pluralism. That again, is not Europe. . . .