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Religion & Law

Blog From The Capital

Blog from the Capital is the weblog of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, a Baptist church-state separation advocacy group in D.C. for the last 70 years.

Post Frequency: 8.8/day

Last Entry: March 30, 2009 at 16:22:09

Ban on Sikh Kirpan Challenged (The Becket Fund is Busy)

Posted on January 08, 2009
An employee of the Internal Revenue Service filed suityesterday in federal court to challenge the ban on wearing a kirpan. [Kawaljeet] Tagore was fired in July 2006 because she refused to remove her kirpan, a religious item that initiated Sikhs...

Plaintiff Speaks Out on South Carolina License Plate Case

Posted on January 08, 2009
Reverend Thomas Summers, one of the plaintiffs in the South Carolina license plate suit, is quoted at the AU blog with some refreshing words of wisdom. ?When lawmakers chose to single out one religious group on a state-sanctioned license plate...

Sincerity of Belief in Love, Music, and Meat

Posted on January 07, 2009
On Monday, a motion was filed to keep video evidence out of a Pennsylvania trial scheduled to begin February 23. The $1 million lawsuit, brought by the Universal Church of Love and Music, claims a local ban on its church...

Religious Right Candidate Poised for Republican Party Chair?

Posted on January 07, 2009
At The American Prospect, Sarah Posner writes of RNC Chairman candidate Ken Blackwell's connections to prominent Religious Right organizations (a fellow at the Family Research Council), and his history of alienating others with a leadership style that is dependent on...

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Amish Conflict with Building Codes Results in Federal Lawsuit

Posted on January 06, 2009
As promised, a federal lawsuit has been filed on behalf of Amish families in Morristown, NY. The 17-count complaint charges that since 2006, Morristown officials have singled out the Amish, who belong to the Old Order Swartzentruber Amish, for prosecution...

Hearing Set for Inauguration Lawsuit

Posted on January 06, 2009
Howard Friedman at Religion Clause has the scoop: a district judge has set a January 15 hearing in the case of Newdow v Roberts, a challenge of the constitutionality of the invocation of God in the oath and in prayers...

Appeal Filed with Supreme Court in Snowbowl RFRA Case

Posted on January 06, 2009
Native American tribes filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving the expansion of a ski resort to use reclaimed sewage for artificial snow. The Arizona Snowbowl case has garnered significant attention as an opportunity for...

Lord Blagojevich?

Posted on January 05, 2009
Is there anything more annoying in a politician than the capacity to believe God has endorsed his seat of power? Preparing to go to Washington, D.C. amid a flurry of controversy surrounding his appointment to the Senate, Roland Burris went...

Kentucky Legislator Draws Attention for Church-State "Stunts"

Posted on January 05, 2009
Over the weekend, the NYTimes profiled Kentucky state legislator Tom Riner. You may remember him as the minister-representative responsible for sneaking in language requiring dependence on God into the state's homeland security bill. It would seem Riner is a kind...

Obama Transition Team "Tackling the Church-State Issue Head On"

Posted on January 05, 2009
Jane Lampman of the Christian Science Monitor reports that Obama's transition team is exploring ways to garner broad support for his vision of faith-based funding partnerships. Tackling the church-state issue head on, the Obama transition team has engaged a large...

DC Appeals Court Relaxes Guantanamo Case Deadline

Posted on January 03, 2009
A NYTimes piece today by Adam Liptak looks into the potential effect the new U.S. President might have on enemy combatant detainee cases on appeal. It concludes with a bit of news in the case of religious freedom claims brought...

8th Circuit Upholds Religious Discrimination Verdict Against AT&T

Posted on January 02, 2009
The EEOC announced earlier this week that the 8th Circuit declined to review AT&T's appeal of a $756,000 jury verdict. The Commission sued the company for violation of the religious discrimination provisions of Title VII on behalf of 2 Jehovah's...

Tuesday Afternoon Deep Thought

Posted on December 30, 2008
With wars raging in Iraq, Afghanistan and anew in Gaza, amid a presidential transition, while the world economy is apparently in meltdown, genocide ongoing in Darfur and global warming picking up its pace, it's hard to believe anyone would consider...

New Jersey Denies Methodist Association's Right of Refusal Argument

Posted on December 30, 2008
The NJ Civil Rights Division has ruled in favor of a lesbian couple claiming the Methodist Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association discriminated against them improperly in not allowing the couple's marriage ceremony to occur on the popular beachfront pavilion...

Illinois Supreme Court Orders Pharmacists' Case May Proceed

Posted on December 29, 2008
A story I somehow missed in the Christmas haze, the Illinois Supreme Court earlier this month reinstated a "right of conscience" case involving pharmacists who object to distributing emergency contraception on religious grounds. 2 lower state courts had agreed to...

Military Policy Upgrade Addresses Complaints of Evangelizing

Posted on December 28, 2008
The Pentagon has quietly updated their recruitment center policies to make clearer the ban on proselytizing or religious favoritism by the military. A new regulation distributed last month to commanders of the 65 centers says that religious literature and publications...

New York Judge Finds Solution in Amish Case

Posted on December 26, 2008
Via Religion Clause, Canton, NY officials have come up with a way to provide life-saving surgery to a baby with a hole in his heart without getting the consent of the Amish parents whose religious beliefs preclude them of giving,...

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2008
I'm taking the day off. You should too! Turn off the computer and come back tomorrow....

Bush's Conscience Rule and the "Two Sets" of Religious Beliefs involved in Medical Care

Posted on December 24, 2008
Professor Marci Hamilton has an essay at Findlaw slamming the Bush Administration for its 11th hour policy move to protect medical service providers who object to some treatments (or treating some patients?) on religious grounds. I have to admit I'm....

Christian Inauguration Prayer Nothing New

Posted on December 23, 2008
Associated Baptist Press' Bob Allen looks back at recent inauguration invocations and finds that if my hope for Obama's comes true, it would not be the exception. Specifically Christian prayers have been the norm. Eight years ago Kirbyjohn Caldwell, senior...

Next Year's Debates: Same as This Year's Debates?

Posted on December 23, 2008
From Bible clubs and classroom religious displays in public schools to sidewalk preaching and another round of Mt. Soledad cross appeals, the LATimes reviews church-state cases that California high courts will consider next year....

A Day of Prayer, and Principle vs. Proportion

Posted on December 22, 2008
Arguing that constitutional principle needs to be tempered by a sense of proportion, an editorial today in the LATimes takes on the issue of state-sponsored days of prayer. The paper hoping a lawsuit that would forbid the Governor of Colorado...

Washingtons Mixed Message Recognition of Hanukkah

Posted on December 21, 2008
As the Hanukkah festival gets under way, Religion Clause notes the controversial imagery the White House is using to mark the event....

"Right of Conscience" Coverage

Posted on December 19, 2008
Newspapers today are writing about the Bush Administration's last-minute policy denying federal funding to health providers that do not offer a right to refuse services that conflict with religious beliefs. The Chicago Tribune's Judith Graham blogs: The Bush administration acknowledged...

Bush Administration Issues Controversial Last-Minute Policy

Posted on December 18, 2008
The Bush Administration today made official a controversial policy ensuring workers the right to refuse to provide health services that conflict with their religious views. The rule - proposed last month to allow public comment - would deny federal funding...

The Churchs Prophetic Voice and the Limitations of Sectarian Interests

Posted on December 18, 2008
On Tuesday, Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori delivered a speech at the National Press Club entitled "Religion in the Public Square." Schori is the presiding bishop of the episcopal Church. Her focus was the role of the church as a prophetic voice against injustice and poverty.

Rick Warren, Joseph Lowery to Pray at Inauguration

Posted on December 17, 2008
According to the Wall Street Journal, author, mega-church pastor and presidential inquisitor Rick Warren will deliver an invocation at President-elect Obamas inauguration next month. Civil Rights patriarch Joseph Lowery will give the benediction. Instead of focusing on the controversial stances...

Jailed for Religious Head Covering

Posted on December 17, 2008
Judges have a right to control their courtrooms - of course - and to set policies that ensure decorum. But more importantly, Americans have a right to access the judicial system without being forced to violate religious mandates in the...

Military Watchdog Alleges Improper Use of Army Personnel to Proselytize in Afghanistan

Posted on December 16, 2008
At Talk2Action, Chris Rodda relays new troubling information about the US military's involvement with Christian entertainment programming. She argues that the depictions of Army personnel assisting in the "evangelizing of Afghans by...Christian missionaries" is not only questionable constitutionally, but also...

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