Religion & Law

Virginia Governor Restores Police Chaplains' Right To Deliver Sectarian Prayers

Posted on April 29, 2010
In Virginia, a State Police policy adopted in 2008 requiring police chaplains to deliver non-sectarian prayers at official events has been reversed by Gov. Bob McDonnell's administration. Yesterday's Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot reports on the change that had been pressed by the Family Foundation of Virginia...

Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Release of Names of Petition Signers

Posted on April 29, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday heard oral arguments in Doe v. Reed, (full transcript of arguments). At issue is whether the right to anonymous political speech was infringed when Washington state, under its Public Records Law, released the names of those who signed a petition seeking a referendum on the state's domestic partnership law...

Court Lacks Jurisdiction Over Decision Not To Circulate Minister's Resume

Posted on April 29, 2010
In Thibodeau v. American Baptist Churches of Connecticut, (CT App., April 27, 2010), the Appellate Court of Connecticut held that the free exercise protections of the U.S. and Connecticut constitutions preclude it from exercising jurisdiction over complaints by a Baptist minister that the regional organization of American Baptist churches refused to circulate his resume to congregations because of concern about his fitness for the ministry...

USCIRF Releases 2010 Annual Report on International Religious Freedom

Posted on April 29, 2010
In a press release today, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom announced the release of its 2010 Annual Report. The Report recommends to Congress, the White House and the State Department that 13 countries be listed as "countries of particular concern (CPCs)" -- countries where the most egregious violations of religious freedom are taking place...

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Creator Of "Draw Mohammed" Campaign Backs Off, As Others Continue It

Posted on April 28, 2010
Reacting to last week's online threats to the creators of South Park over their depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in a bear costume (see prior posting), Seattle artist Molly Norris created a poster promoting May 20 as "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," sponsored by a fictional group, Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor...

Dispute Continues Over Nepal As Secular State In Propposed Constitution

Posted on April 28, 2010
In Nepal, as law makers approach the May 28 deadline for completing a draft of a new constitution, tensions increase over whether the country will remain a secular state. In 2006, Parliament passed a resolution providing that the country would no longer formally be known as a Hindu nation...

9th Circuit: Appeal To Religion Did Not Void Miranda Waiver

Posted on April 28, 2010
In United States v. Scaggs, (9th Cir., April 26, 2010), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Miranda waiver by convicted murderer David Scaggs was not renedered involuntary by interrogators appeal to his religious beliefs. In questioning Scaggs without a lawyer present, the investigator asked him if he was a religious man...

Recommended Life Sentence For Rubashkin Questioned

Posted on April 28, 2010
A sentencing hearing is scheduled tomorrow in an Iowa federal district court for Sholom Rubashkin, the former manager of a Postville, Iowa kosher slaughter house who was convicted on 86 counts of financial fraud after a raid on the Agriprocessors packing plant also led to immigration charges that were eventually dropped...

Interpretation of Florida "No-Aid" Provision Certified To State High Court

Posted on April 28, 2010
In Council for Secular Humanism, Inc. v. McNeil, (FL App., April 27, 2010), a Florida appellate court in an Establishment Clause case, by a 7-7 vote, denied a motion for en banc review of a decision by a 3-judge panel. However the 3 judges did file an amended panel decision and certified to the state Supreme Court as a matter of great public importance the question of whether the "no aid" provision in Florida's constitution prohibits the state from contracting with religious organizations for the provision of faith based transitional housing for inmates...

Supreme Court Reverses Order Barring Display of Cross At World War I Memorial

Posted on April 28, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court today, in a fragmented decision producing six separate opinions, decided a challenge to Congress' transfer of a religious symbol on federal land to a private party, the VFW. The case involved the long-running dispute over the Sunrise Rock Cross in the Mojave Preserve memorial to those killed in World War I...

Islamic Clerics In Kenya Banning Public Soccer Broadcasts

Posted on April 27, 2010
Reuters yesterday reported that a group of Islamic clerics in Kenya are trying to prevent public broadcasts of soccer and of films in the area around the town of Mandera, near the border with Somalia. The clerics say that young people are being distracted from their religious obligations by the broadcasts, so the clerics are confiscating equipment, destroying DVDs, and compensating the owners for them...

Court Says Student May Participate In Pro-Life Day of Solidarity

Posted on April 27, 2010
In C.H. v. Bridgeton Board of Education, (D NJ, April 22, 2010), a New Jersey federal district court enjoined a New Jersey high school from preventing a student from distributing flyers and wearing a red duct tape armband reading "Life" as part of her participation in the Pro-Life Day of Solidarity...

New Poll On Religion In Public Life

Posted on April 27, 2010
Last Friday, Rasmussen Reports released a new poll of American adults on issues of religion in public life and the performance of the courts. Among the results: 64% believe judges' rulings have been more anti-religious than intended by the country's founders...

5th Circuit Hears Oral Arguments In Texas School Agency Creationism Policy

Posted on April 27, 2010
Yesterday the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in Comer v. Scott. (Recording of oral arguments.) In the case the district court rejected an Establishment Clause challenge to a policy of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) that required its Director of Science to remain publicly neutral regarding the teaching of creationism...

Christian Stock Index Launched

Posted on April 27, 2010
London's Financial Times reported that Europe's first stock index based on Christian values was launched yesterday. Stoxx Europe Christian Index consists of stocks of 533 European companies whose revenues come only from sources approved "according to the values and principles of the Christian religion...

Obama Meets With Ailing Billy Graham In North Carolina

Posted on April 26, 2010
AP reports that yesterday while in North Carolina, President Barack Obama traveled to visit ailing 91-year old evangelist Billy Graham at Graham's mountainside home. Graham's son, evangelist Franklin Graham, was also there. Obama's visit lasted 30 minutes...

Prayers At Honolulu City Council Questioned

Posted on April 26, 2010
Yesterday's Honolulu Advertiser reports that Hawai'i Citizens for Separation of State and Church has filed a complaint with Honolulu City Council contending that since January 2008, 25 out of 27 Council meetings have been opened by Christian prayer or sermonizing...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on April 26, 2010
From SSRN:Adam Schwartzbaum, The Niqab in the Courtroom: Protecting Free Exercise in a Post-Smith World, (April 20, 2010).Samuel J. Levine, Of Inkblots and Omnisignificance: Conceptualizing Secondary and Symbolic Functions of the Ninth Amendment, in a Comparative Hermeneutic Framework, (Michigan State Law Review, Vol...

Suit In Botswana Challenges Authority of Territorial Chief Over Churches

Posted on April 26, 2010
According to Botswana's Sunday Standard, a hearing is scheduled today before a High Court judge in Botswana in a suit filed by the country' Evangelical Fellowship and the Family of God Church against the royal family of the territory of Bakgatla. Last week, a dispute broke out between the Family of God Church and the royal family over a crusade held by the church in the city of Mochudi...

British Court Sentences Atheist For Leaving Insulting Material In Airport Chapel

Posted on April 26, 2010
A judge in England's Liverpool Crown Court last week Harry Taylor, described by BBC News as a "militant atheist", a six month suspended sentence for causing religiously aggravated intentional harassment. He was convicted by a jury in March of leaving distressing posters in the prayer room at Liverpool's John Lennon Airport...

Compromise Will Let South African Jurist Attend His Grandson's Bar Mitzvah

Posted on April 25, 2010
Apparently South African jurist Richard Goldstone will be able to attend his grandson's Bar Mitzvah in a Johannesburg suburb after all. Goldstone is currently a visiting faculty member at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Earlier this month it was reported (see prior posting) that planned demonstrations by the South African Zionist Federation over Goldstone's report to the United Nations on Israel's Gaza incursion had led Goldstone to decide not to attend...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on April 25, 2010
In Taylor v. Doe, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38201 (SD OH, April 19, 2010), an Ohio federal district court adopted the recommendations of a federal magistrate (2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38195, March 2, 2010) and dismissed an inmate's argument that his free exercise rights were infringed when he was not permitted to go to a doctor's appointment because of long hair that he wore for religious reasons...

Traffic Arrest Intensifies Debate In France Over Ban of Burqa and Niqab

Posted on April 25, 2010
Yesterday's Irish Times reports that the debate in France over a proposed ban of the niqab and burqa (full face veils) (see prior posting) has intensified after it was learned that traffic police in the city of Nantes earlier this month fined a Muslim woman 22 Euros for driving a car while wearing a niqab...

Congressional Earmarks Challenged On Church-State Grounds

Posted on April 25, 2010
In a letter (full text) sent last week to the Attorney General and to the Labor, HUD and Education secretaries, Americans United identified ten Congressional funding earmarks for fiscal 2010 that it says raise church-state issues. AU contends that the recipient organizations in each case "are pervasively sectarian, engage in substantial religious activities such as teaching or proselytization, engage in religious discrimination in service provision, and/or coerce service recipients to take part in religious activities...

Britain Apologizes To Vatican Over Leaked Memo On Pope's Planned Visit

Posted on April 25, 2010
Britain's Foreign Office yesterday issued a public apology to the Vatican after the press obtained a copy of a provocative memo circulated earlier this month among government officials. London's Sunday Telegraph reports that the background document grew out of a "brainstorming" session among civil servants on plans for Pope Benedict XVI's September visit to Britain...

Tax Court Rules On Disputed Religious Charitable Deductions

Posted on April 24, 2010
In Wilkes v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, (USTC, April 22, 2010), the United States Tax Court agreed with some, but not all, of the Commissioner's disallowance of claimed religious charitable contributions by Jeffrey and Patricia Wilkes who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ...

Sri Lankan Official Complains About South Park's Portrayal of Buddha

Posted on April 24, 2010
Sri Lanka's Sunday Leader reports today on indignation in Sri Lanka over two recent episodes of the animated American television show South Park which depicted Lord Buddha snorting cocaine. The government's Minister of Religious Affairs said he would ban the shows, and even the entire series, from being televised in the country...

Challenge To Nativity Scene Dismissed As Moot

Posted on April 24, 2010
In Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Manitowoc County, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39667 (ED WI, April 22, 2010), a Wisconsin federal district court dismissed as moot a challenge to the display of a Nativity scene on the Manitowoc County (WI) Courthouse lawn...

Suit Against Vatican and Pope Seeks Damages, Release of Names of Absuive Clergy

Posted on April 24, 2010
Yesterday's National Law Journal reported on a suit filed in federal court in Milwaukee, Wisconsin against the Holy See, the Pope, and two cardinals at the Vatican, seeking damages because of sexual abuse plaintiff suffered at the hands of Rev. Lawrence Murphy who taught at St...

New Law Expands Florida Tax Credit School Voucher Program

Posted on April 23, 2010
Florida's Governor Charlie Crist yesterday signed SB 2126, a bill that dramatically expands Florida's Tax Credit Scholarship Program. (Legislative history.) According to today's Miami Herald, corporations get dollar-for-dollar tax credits for contributions to the voucher program that is open to low-income students...

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