Religion & Law

Mormon Senator Orin Hatch Composes New Hanukkah Song

Posted on December 10, 2009
Tuesday's New York Times reports that Republican Senator Orin Hatch, a Mormon from Utah has written the lyrics for a catchy Hanukkah song, "Eight Days of Hanukkah." The music is by Hatch's musical collaborator,Madeline Stone. Hatch is known for writing Christian hymns and patriotic songs, but this is his first Jewish composition...

Today Is Human Rights Day-- 61st Anniversary of UN Declaration

Posted on December 10, 2009
Today is Human Rights Day, commemorating the 1948 adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 18 of the document provides: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance...

British Court Rejects Criminal Charges Against Christian Hotel Owners

Posted on December 10, 2009
In Britain yesterday, a Liverpool Magistrate's Court dismissed charges of religiously aggravated threatening behavior that had been brought against a Christian couple who own a hotel in Liverpool. The charges brought under Section 5 of the Public Order Act (1986) charged that Ben and Sharon Vogelenzang had made threatening, abusive or insulting remarks about Islam to hotel guest Ericka Tazi...

Questioning of Expert Witness About Religion Found To Be Harmless Error

Posted on December 10, 2009
In re State of New York v. Andrew O., (App. Div., Dec. 3, 2009), is an appeal of a trial court's finding that respondent is a dangerous sex offender who needs to be confined to a secure treatment facility. One objection raised by respondent was that the psychologist who testified for him was improperly questioned about religion...

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California Woman Pushing Initiative To Require Christmas Carols In Schools

Posted on December 09, 2009
Yesterday's Redding, California Record Searchlight reports on the progress of Merry Hyatt who is collecting signatures for a proposed ballot initiative (full text) that would require public schools to "provide opportunities to its pupils for listening or performing Christmas music at an appropriate time of year...

Oman Authorities Investigating Religious Text Message Scam

Posted on December 09, 2009
In Oman, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority is investigating a scam which some say is being carried out by mobile telephone companies exploiting religious sentiments of their subscribers. UAE's The National reported yesterday that automated religious text messages are being sent out to customers, concluding with: "Forward this message to 10 people to earn the rewards of afterlife...

Canadian Street Preacher Acquitted of Noise and Other Charges

Posted on December 09, 2009
Yesterday's Calgary Sun reports on Monday's 90-page ruling by a Canadian Provincial Court judge in Calgary, Alberta. The court acquitted a street preacher on seven charges, finding that six of the charges infringed his rights to free expression and freedom of religion...

Cert. Filed In School's Ban of Student Musical Performance At Graduation

Posted on December 09, 2009
A petition for certiorari (full text) has been filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Nurre v. Whitehead. In the case, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 ruling, held that school officials did not violate a student's free speech rights when they barred her from performing an instrumental version of Ave Maria at her Everett, Washington high school's graduation ceremony...

Israel's Justice Minister Creates Controversy With Comments on Religious Law

Posted on December 09, 2009
A speech given on Monday by Israel's Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, calling for incorporating more of Jewish law into Israeli civil law, has set off a firestorm of protest in the country. According to Haaretz, the speech was given at the opening session of the organization Halichot Am Israel, a group that wants to make Jewish law part of Israel's civil justice system...

Russia's Supreme Court Agrees Jehovah's Witness Publications Are "Extremist"

Posted on December 09, 2009
The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation yesterday upheld a finding by a Rostov-on-Don Regional Court that 34 specific Jehovah's Witness publications (all published in the U.S. or Germany) are "extremist." Forum 18 reports that under the 2002 Extremism Law, the publications will now be added to the Justice Ministry's Federal List of Extremist Material and banned throughout the country...

Newdow Asks DC Circuit To Eliminate Opening Cry Before His Case Is Heard

Posted on December 08, 2009
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments on Dec. 15 in Newdow v. Roberts, a case which challenged the use of "so help me God" in the oath administered by Chief Justice John Roberts in swearing in President Barack Obama...

Court Dismisses Suit Over Firing, Invokes Ministerial Exception

Posted on December 08, 2009
In Guerrier v. Southern New England Conference Association of Seventh-Day Adventists, 2009 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2962 (CT Super., Nov. 12, 2009), a Connecticut trial court invoked the ministerial exception doctrine to dismiss a group of tort and contract claims filed by a minister who had been removed by defendant as pastor of Shekinah Haitian Church in Norwich, and told there were no other past openings available...

10th Circuit Refuses To Bar Deportation of Mormon To Colombia

Posted on December 08, 2009
In Terreros-Guarin v. Holder, (10th Cir., Dec. 2, 2009), the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a Colombian man's attempt to avoid deportation. Francisco Alberto Terreros-Guarin was an early convert to the Mormon Church in Colombia, and served in high-profile roles in the Church...

In This Year's Christmas Wars, More Cities Eliminate Religious Displays

Posted on December 08, 2009
This year's "Christmas Wars" seem to be taking a different shape. In past years, typically a government entity permitted a religious display which was then challenged in court. This year, in a number of cases a governmental entity, after researching the law, has changed past practice and removed, or not included, a religious component...

Kenyan Leader Says Noise Regulations Will Be Amended To Assure Right to Worship

Posted on December 08, 2009
In Kenya, Prime Minister Raila Odinga over the week end told a rally that new noise pollution regulations promulgated by the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) will not infringe religious freedom. According to today's Daily Nation, Odinga said that the Adhan-- the Muslim call to prayer-- would be exempted from the new noise pollution rules...

Obama's Talks With Turkey's Erdogan Included Religious Freedom Issues

Posted on December 08, 2009
President Obama yesterday met at the White House with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. (White House blog.) Before the meeting, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom wrote the president asking him to make freedom of religion an important part of his talks with Erdogan...

8 Rastafariains Mark Decade In Segregation For Refusing to Cut Their Hair

Posted on December 08, 2009
In prisons across Virginia, at least eight Rastafarian prisoners will mark ten years of confinement in segregation cells-- solely because they refuse for religious reasons to cut their hair to comply with prison grooming rules. Yesterday's Richmond Times Dispatch reported that prisoners in segregation are confined to small cells, and are let out only for three showers and five hour-long recreation periods a week...

Supreme Court Grants Review In Hastings Christian Legal Society Case

Posted on December 07, 2009
The U.S. Supreme Court today granted certiorari in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, (Docket No. 08-1371) (Order List). In the case, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the right of University of California's Hastings College of Law to impose its policy against discrimination on the basis of religion and sexual orientation on a student religious group seeking formal recognition...

UN Climate Summit Will Not Have Christmas Trees

Posted on December 07, 2009
Friday's Copenhagen Post reports that the international summit on climate change that opens in Copenhagen, Denmark today will be religiously neutral. Denmark's foreign minister rejected a sponsorship that would have provided a number of Nordmann fir trees as decorations for the entrance of Bella Center, where the conference is being held...

Vallejo, CA Mayor Reflects Clash Between Christian and Gay Residents

Posted on December 07, 2009
Friday's San Francisco Chronicle reported on the controversy surrounding Osby Davis, mayor of Vallejo, California. In a Nov. 20 New York Times article, Davis was quoted as saying that gays are "committing sins and those sins will keep them out of heaven...

New Vote To Overturn Minaret Ban Being Considered In Switzerland

Posted on December 07, 2009
Yesterday's Washington Post reports that liberals in Switzerland are considering seeking signatures for a new initiative that would overturn the ban on building minarets in the country that was adopted last week. Club Helvetique, a group Swiss intellectuals, will move ahead to draw up an action plan...

Recent Articles of Interest-- They Abound This Week

Posted on December 07, 2009
From SSRN:Khan, Ali, Anti-Islamic Torture , (Global Dialogue, Vol. 12, 2010).Robert Luther, 'Unity Through Division': Religious Liberty and the Virtue of Pluralism in the Context of Legislative Prayer Controversies, (Creighton Law Review, Vol. 43, No...

Survey Released On Prejudice In Europe

Posted on December 06, 2009
YNet News today reports on a study released last month by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence (IKG) at Germany's University of Bielefeld. The Study on Group-Focused Enmity in Europe revealed the following survey results: 50...

British Cardinal Rejects Seat In House of Lords

Posted on December 06, 2009
In Britain, Catholic Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has turned down an invitation to become the first Catholic bishop to sit in the House of Lords. Prime Minister Gordon Brown hopes to appoint leaders of the major faiths to sit in the House of Lords along with the Church of England's 26 lords spiritual...

Another Approach To Public Holiday Displays-- "Only In America"

Posted on December 06, 2009
Today's Coloradoan reports on Larimer County (CO) Sheriff Jim Alderen's third "Apparently Annual Politically Incorrect Christmas Tree Trimming Party." This year, though, in order to be inclusive, the sheriff also invited atheists and agnostics from the Colorado Coalition of Reason to be part of the event...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on December 06, 2009
In Robinson v. Jacquez, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110710 (ND CA, Nov. 10, 2009), a California federal district judge dismissed an inmate's claims that his free exercise rights were violated by prison authorities' failing to provide kosher meals, permit attendance at Jewish service, and provide a staff rabbi...

Teachers Testify, Complaining About Consent Decree Banning Religion In Schools

Posted on December 05, 2009
In a 9-page consent decree issued last May (see prior posting), a Florida federal district court enjoined Santa Rosa County, Florida school officials from promoting or participating in any way in prayer with students at school events or during instructional time...

Tajik Authorities Say Baptists Must Register Before Gathering To Worship

Posted on December 05, 2009
In Tajikistan's capital of Dushanbe, a District Court has ordered a Baptist congregation to stop meeting for worship in an apartment of one of the congregation's leaders. Reports this week from Forum 18 and ABP say that officials insist the church must register under the country's Religion Law before it can meet...

7th Circuit: Sheriff Unconstitutionally Endorsed Christian Speakers

Posted on December 05, 2009
In Milwaukee Deputy Sheriff's Association v. Clarke, (7th Cir., Dec. 4, 2009), the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Wisconsin sheriff's department violated the Establishment Clause when it invited representatives of the Fellowship of the Christian Centurions, a peer support group for law enforcement officers, to speak at several mandatory employee meetings...

Canadian Court Says Pastor's Anti-Gay Letter Was Protected Speech

Posted on December 05, 2009
In June 2008 in the Canadian province of Alberta, the Human Rights and Citizenship Commission ordered pastor Stephen Boissoin and his Concerned Christian Coalition to stop publishing and broadcasting disparaging remarks about gays, after earlier finding that a letter Boisson published in the Red Deer Advocate incited hatred against homosexuals in violation of the province's human rights law...

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