Religion & Law

Supreme Court Rules In Favor of Westboro Baptist Church Anti-Gay Funeral Picketers

Posted on March 02, 2011
The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled in an 8-1 decision that Westboro Baptist Church and its members are shielded by the First Amendment from tort liability for their picketing of the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder who was killed in Iraq...

Westboro Responds To Its Supreme Court Win

Posted on March 02, 2011
ABC News reports on the less than gracious response of Margie Phelps, lead counsel for Westboro Baptist Church, to her win today in the Supreme court. (See prior posting.)  Phelps, daughter of the church's pastor, said of the protests that the Supreme Court found protected by the 1st Amendment:We are trying to warn you to flee the wrath of God, flee the wrath of destruction...

Indian Court Sentences 11 To Death For 2002 Attack On Hindus

Posted on March 01, 2011
Last week, a  court in India's state of Gujarat found 31 Muslims guilty of murder and criminal conspiracy in the 2002 attack that set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims. The attack killed 59 and set off counter anti-Muslim riots that killed up to 2000...

Judge Should Have Given "Deific Command" Instruction In Murder Trial

Posted on March 01, 2011
In State of New Jersey v. Singleton, (NJ App., Feb. 28, 2011), the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division reversed the conviction of Boyce Singleton who had been found guilty of murdering his pregnant girlfriend, finding the trial judge's instructions on the insanity defense were incomplete...

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British Court Struggles With Conflict Between Christian Beliefs and Foster Care Rules On Sexual Orientation

Posted on March 01, 2011
In Britain yesterday, the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice refused to issue a declaratory order in a case pitting a Christian couple's beliefs regarding homosexuality against a proposed interpretation of government standards for approval of applicants who wish to serve as foster care givers...

Yemini Islamist Leader Interjects Call For Islamic State Into Anti-Government Demonstrations

Posted on March 01, 2011
The New York Times today reports that a new element has been introduced into the anti-government protests in Yemen. Sheik Abdul Majid al-Zindani, head of the Islamist Al Islah party, spoke to several thousand anti-government protesters today calling for replacement of the present government with an Islamic state...

US Imposes Sanctions on 2 More Iranian Officials For Human Rights Violations

Posted on February 28, 2011
Last week, the U.S. Treasury and State Departments announced the designation of two additional Iranian officials as being responsible for or complicit in serious human rights abuses in Iran since June 2009.  The designation results in freezing assets of the officials, barring transactions with them by U...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on February 28, 2011
From SSRN:Tommaso Pavone, Redefining Religious Neutrality: Lautsi vs. Italy and the European Court of Human Rights, (February 16, 2011).Lance McMillian, Atticus Finch - Christian?, (Tennessee Law Review, Vol. 77, No. 1, 2010).Richard Schragger, The Relative Irrelevance of the Establishment Clause, (Texas Law Review, Vol...

Review Denied In Pastor's Defamation Claim

Posted on February 28, 2011
Today the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in Cooke v. Tubra, (Docket No. 10-559, cert. den. 2/28/2011). (Order List.)  In the case, an Oregon appellate court reversed a trial court's dismissal of a pastor's defamation claim against his former church and two of its officers...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on February 27, 2011
In Crump v. Unknown Patrick, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 16807 (WD MI, Feb. 18, 2011), a Michigan federal district court dismissed a Muslim inmate's free exercise, RLUIPA and equal protection claims. Plaintiff claimed that on two occasions he was mistakenly given pork meals and on a third occasion a food worker's neglect in changing gloves cross contaminated his food with pork...

Gingrich's 2012 Campaign Places More Emphasis On Religious Faith

Posted on February 27, 2011
Today's New York Times reports that as former House speaker Newt Gingrich gears up for a run for the 2012 Republican nomination for President, in his public appearances he is placing a new emphasis on religious faith.  The Times says that on the campaign trail, Gingrich will:have to grapple with aspects of his life and career that could give pause to elements of the Republican primary electorate, including a lack of a well-established association with religious conservatives and attendant questions about his two divorces...

ACLU Says High School Students Should Be Allowed To Post 10 Commandments On Their Lockers

Posted on February 26, 2011
According to WSLS-TV News, the ACLU of Virginia is supporting the right of Floyd County, Virginia high school students to post their personal views-- including copies of the Ten Commandments-- on their own school locker doors. Apparently Floyd County High School administrators removed copies of the Ten Commandments from lockers of members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes under a school policy that requires school approval for postings on lockers other than messages such as "happy birthday" or "go team...

Afghanistan Releases Man Jailed For Converting To Christianity

Posted on February 26, 2011
AP reports that in Afghanistan earlier this week, Sayed Mussa, who had been held in jail for nine months on charges of converting to Christianity, was released. After a campaign on his behalf by Christian activists and international diplomats, prosecutors determined that they did not have enough evidence to charge Mussa...

Warsaw Convention Pre-Empts Religious Discrimination Claim Against Foreign Airline

Posted on February 26, 2011
In Sewer v. LIAT (1974) Ltd., (D VI, Feb. 16, 2011), a Virgin Islands federal district court held that the Warsaw Convention pre-empts a claim brought by a Virgin Islands citizen against a foreign airline for alleged discriminatory exclusion of plaintiff from a flight originating in the British Virgin Islands...

Federal Court Says Utah's Reformation of FLDS Trust Violates Establishment Clause

Posted on February 25, 2011
In a surprising decision yesterday, a Utah federal district court held unconstitutional the five years of state court proceedings aimed at reforming the polygamous FLDS Church's United Effort Plan Trust. Utah courts have attempted to carry out the reforms using non-religious neutral principles of law...

Maryland Senate Approves Same-Sex Marriage Bill

Posted on February 25, 2011
The Maryland state Senate yesterday passed the Civil Marriage Protection Act (SB 116), by a vote of 25-21. The bill authorizes same-sex marriage in the state, and provides that clergy may not be required to solemnize marriages in violation of their free exercise of religion...

Refusal To Delay Civil Trail For Plaintiff's Religious Observance Was Abuse of Discretion

Posted on February 25, 2011
In Neustadter v. Holy Cross Hospital of Silver Spring, Inc., (MD Ct. App., Feb. 24, 2011), Maryland's Court of Appeals-- the state's highest court-- held that a trial court abused its discretion when it refused to suspend a civil medical malpractice trial for two days when plaintiff and his attorney could not attend because of religious obligations imposed by the Jewish holiday of Shavuot...

Iraqi Supreme Court Interprets Constitutional Provision Barring Laws From Violating Settled Rulings of Islam

Posted on February 24, 2011
An op-ed published on Jurist earlier this month discusses a little-noticed decision handed down last December by Iraq's Federal Supreme Court which for the first time interpreted the provision in Iraq's Constitution (Art. 2) prohibiting civil laws from violating "settled rulings" of Islam...

Canadian Street Preacher Convicted For Using Sound Amplification System

Posted on February 24, 2011
In the Canadian province of Alberta, the Calgary Court of Queen's Bench yesterday reversed a provincial court's dismissal of charges against street preacher Artur Pawlowski who violated city park rules by using a sound amplification system. (See prior posting...

Defendant Pleads Guilty To Hate Crime Against Mosque Playground

Posted on February 24, 2011
A Department of Justice press release reports that yesterday in a Fort Worth, Texas federal district court, Henry Clay Glaspell pleaded guilty to a hate crime charge growing out of his setting fire to playground equipment at an Arlington, Texas mosque...

Tennessee Legislators Propose Elaborate Anti-Sharia Bills

Posted on February 24, 2011
The most elaborate example yet of an anti-Sharia bill was introduced last week in the Tennessee House and Senate.  The Tennessean reports that SB 1028 (full text), and the identical HB 1353, were filed on Thursday to meet the deadline for introducing bills for the current session of the legislature, and that they may yet be amended...

Group Challenges Religious Display In County Official's Office

Posted on February 24, 2011
Up North Live reports that a letter from the Freedom from Religion Foundation to the Cheboygan County, Michigan Drain Commissioner raises questions about the propriety of religious displays in the private offices of government officials.  FFRF objects to a cross and a nativity scene in Commissioner Dennis Lennox's office...

FBI Sued For Planting Informant In California Mosques

Posted on February 24, 2011
ACLU of Southern California announced yesterday that a class action lawsuit has been filed against the FBI for planting an informant in Orange County, California mosques.  Informant Craig Montielh gathered information for 14 months in 2006 and 2007, posing as a convert to Islam...

Obama Administration Says DOMA Is Unconstitutional and Will Not Defend It In Court

Posted on February 24, 2011
The Department of Justice announced yesterday that the Obama administration has concluded that Sec. 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (1 USC Sec. 7) is unconstitutional and will no longer defend it in court. That section defines marriage for purposes of federal law as "only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife...

Naval Academy Grad Succeeds In Obtaining Conscientious Objector Status

Posted on February 23, 2011
Yesterday, Michael Izbicki became one of the few graduates of the U.S. Naval Academy to ever successfully obtain conscientious objector status. Today's New York Times chronicles Izbicki's two-year legal battle, including a federal lawsuit filed on his behalf by the ACLU last November...

DC District Court Upholds Health Care Reform-- No Commerce Clause or Free Exercise Problems

Posted on February 23, 2011
Another federal district court has weighed in on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act-- the 2010 law reforming the U.S. health care insurance system.  In Mead v. Holder, (D DC, Feb. 22, 2011), the district court for the District of Columbia rejected a challenge brought by individuals who object to the mandate to purchase health insurance imposed by the new law-- including objecting on religious grounds...

Delaware High Court Upholds Child Victim's Act Window For Filing Suits

Posted on February 23, 2011
In Sheehan v. Oblates of St. Frances de Sales, (DE Sup. Ct., Feb. 22, 2011), the Delaware Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the state's 2007 Child Victim's Act that repealed the statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases and created a 2-year window for filing suits on which the prior statute of limitations had run...

Police Captain Balks At Attending Law Enforcement Appreciation Day At Mosque

Posted on February 23, 2011
KRMG News yesterday reported that the Tulsa (OK) police department has reassigned a police captain and begun an internal investigation after the captain refused to instruct his officers to attend an upcoming Law Enforcement Appreciation Day sponsored by a local mosque...

Christian Proselytizing Group Sues Dearborn, Michigan Over Arrests At Arab Festival

Posted on February 23, 2011
Yesterday a Christian group that seeks to convince Muslims to convert to Christianity filed a lawsuit in federal district court against the city of Dearborn, Michigan, city police officers and executives of the Dearborn American Arab Chamber of Commerce...

Supreme Court Denies Review In 10 Commandments Case

Posted on February 23, 2011
Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky, (Docket No. 10-566, cert. denied 2/22/2011) (Order List.) In the case-- which has been before the Supreme Court once in 2005 already-- a majority of a 6th Circuit panel (see prior posting) approved issuance of a permanent injunction against a display of the 10 Commandments with other historical documents that refer to God in two Kentucky county court houses...

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