Religion & Law

Jewish School's Appeal Will Be One of the First In Britain's New Supreme Court

Posted on August 04, 2009
In Britain beginning Oct. 1, a new Supreme Court will take over the appellate jurisdiction that has traditionally been exercised by the House of Lords. The change was authorized by the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. (Background.) One of the first case that will be heard by the new court is an appeal by London's Jewish Free School of a controversial decision striking down its admissions policy...

New Iqbal Pleading Standard Leads To Dismissal of Part of School-Music Lawsuit

Posted on August 04, 2009
In S.D. v. St. Johns County School District, (MD FL, July 29, 2009), a Florida federal district court applied the Supreme Court's new pleading standards announced in Ashcroft v. Iqbal to dismiss a portion of a lawsuit claiming that a school's music program violated free exercise and establishment clause constraints...

Russian Supreme Court Bans Radical Islamic Group

Posted on August 04, 2009
Interfax reported yesterday that the Appeal Board of the Russian Supreme Court has banned all activities in Russia of the Islamic group, Tablighi Jamaat. Upholding a finding by the Prosecutor General's Office that Tablighi Jamaat is an extremist group, the Court found that the group's advocacy of a Global Caliphate "threaten[s] interethnic and inter-religious stability in Russian society and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation...

En Banc Rehearing Sought In Washinton State Pharmacy Board Conscience Case

Posted on August 04, 2009
Last week, a Washington state pharmacy filed a petition and an accompanying legal memorandum (full text) with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seeking an en banc rehearing in Stormans Inc. v. Selecky. Last month, a 3-judge panel in the case refused to preliminarily enjoin enforcement of Washington State Pharmacy Board regulations that require pharmacists to fill all prescriptions (including Plan B, the "morning after" contraceptive) even if doing so violates their religious beliefs...

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IRS Proposes Rules To Clarify Who May Authorize Church Audit

Posted on August 04, 2009
BNA Daily Report for Executives [subscription required] reports that the Internal Revenue Service, in proposed regulations that will be published in tomorrow's Federal Register, is attempting to clarify which high level Treasury official has authority to make a determination under IRC Sec...

USCIRF Writes Clinton Urging Her To Raise Religious Freedom Issues In Africa

Posted on August 03, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will begin a ten-day trip to seven African countries beginning August 4. (State Department briefing.) The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has written Clinton asking her to raise religious freedom issues when she visits Nigeria, and when she meets with Somalian officials at the AGOA Forum in Kenya...

Italy Approves Use of RU-486 Amidst Threats of Excommunications

Posted on August 03, 2009
CathNews today reports that the Italian Pharmaceuticals Agency (AIFA) on Thursday approved the use of the abortion drug Mifepristone, also known as RU-486. AIFA required that it be administered only in a hospital setting. Monsignor Elio Sgreccia, Pope Benedict XVI's top expert on bioethical issues, said that the Church would excommunicate any doctor who prescribes the drug and any woman who takes it.

Drug Raid On Church of Universal Love and Music Leads to 22 Arrests

Posted on August 03, 2009
In Fayette County, Pennsylvania on Saturday, the County Drug Taskforce arrested 22 people in a raid on the Church of Universal Love and Music. Yesterday's Pittsburg Post-Gazette reports that the raid took place during a 3-day music festival attended by around 800 people...

Court Says Atheists Challenging School Program May Not Proceed Anonymously

Posted on August 03, 2009
In Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Creek, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65818 (D CO, July 22, 2009), a Colorado federal magistrate judge denied plaintiffs' request that they be allowed to proceed using pseudonyms. Plaintiffs were atheists who were challenging as a violation of the Establishment Clause a Colorado school district's adoption of a program known as "40 Developmental Assets...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on August 03, 2009
From SSRN:Anthony Bessette, Regulating and Punishing Adultery in Korea and East Asia, (July 27, 2009). Nomi Maya Stolzenberg, Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet: A Religious Group's Quest for its Own Public School, (Law and Religion: Cases In Context, Gregory Alexander & Eduardo Penalver, eds...

New IRS Form 990 Pushes Non-Profits To Comply With State Rules

Posted on August 02, 2009
Beginning this year, a newly designed IRS annual return on Form 990 must be filed by non-profits. While churches and various church-affiliated organizations are exempt from filing the form, other religious organizations must do so. An article yesterday in On Philanthropy , as well as an earlier article in Nonprofit Business Advisor, point out that among the new questions on Form 990 is Section C, Line 17 asking for a list of all states in which a copy of the federal Form 990 is required to be filed...

India's High Court Prospectively Bars Shrines On Public Land

Posted on August 02, 2009
Merinews and the Calcutta Telegraph report on a decision handed down Friday by a 2-judge panel of the Supreme Court of India regarding the building of religious shrines. The decision involved an appeal by the Central government of an order against the government of Gujarat requiring it to remove all religious shrines that encroach on public land...

Suit Threatened Against British Photographer Who Used Church For Photo Shoot

Posted on August 02, 2009
In Cornwall, England, attorneys for the vicar of the 13th century Anglican church in St. Michael Penkivel have threatened photographer Andy Craddock with legal action. Yesterday's London Daily Mail reports that Craddock and his girlfriend walked into the open church building with two models who posed for an erotic photo shoot, using the the church interior as a backdrop...

Establishment Clause Challenge To Homeless Shelter Lease and Sale Moves Ahead

Posted on August 02, 2009
In Community House, Inc. v. City of Boise, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 65958 (D ID, July 29, 2009), an Idaho federal district court refused to grant defendants summary judgment and allowed plaintiffs to move ahead on their Establishment Clause challenge to the city of Boise's lease and eventual sale of a homeless shelter to Boise Rescue Mission...

Religious Discrimination Challenges To Placement On No-Fly List Dismissed

Posted on August 02, 2009
In Ibrahim v. Department of Homeland Security, 2009 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 64619 (ND CA, July 27, 2009), Rahinah Ibrahim, a Muslim woman who is a citizen of Malaysia and was a graduate student at Stanford University in 2005, challenged the placement of her name on the Transportation Safety Administration's no-fly list and her treatment at the San Francisco airport...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on August 02, 2009
In Smith v. Ozmint, (4th Cir., July 31, 2009), the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the South Carolina Department of Corrections had not justified under RLUIPA its policy of forcibly shaving the heads of maximum security inmates who wear long hair as a matter of religious belief...

Developments In Two Faith Healing Trials

Posted on August 02, 2009
There have been developments in two separate cases in which parents who relied on faith healing instead of seeking medical assistance were charged in the deaths of their children. In Wausau, Wisconsin, Dale Neumann was convicted Saturday of second degree reckless homicide in the 2003 death of his daughter...

5th Circuit Says Ban On Santeria Sacrifices Violates Texas RFRA

Posted on August 01, 2009
In Merced v. Kasson (consolidated with Merced v. City of Euless) , (5th Cir., July 31, 2009), the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a city's prohibition of animal sacrifices essential to Santeria religious practice violates the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act (TRFRA)...

Authorities Investigating Muslim Violence Against Christians In Pakistani City

Posted on August 01, 2009
In Pakistan's province of Punjab, in the city of Gojra, violence broke out Saturday between Muslim extremists (members of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba group) and Christians. AP reports that hundreds of Muslims began torching Christian homes after a false report that a Quran had been defaced...

Vietnam Orders Buddhist Monks To Leave Monastery

Posted on August 01, 2009
The New York Times today reports on the standoff between Vietnamese authorities and Buddhist monks at Bat Nha Monastery. They were ordered last October by the chairman of Vietnam?s National Committee on Religious Affairs to leave the monastery. The monks, who are followers of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, have been training other monks there since 2005 after Hahn?who developed the philosophy called Engaged Buddhism-- was welcomed back from 39 years of exile in France...

10th Circuit Denies En Banc Review In 10 Commandments Case By 6-6 Vote

Posted on July 31, 2009
By a vote of 6 - 6 yesterday, the judges on the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals denied an en banc rehearing in a Ten Commandments case. The 3-judge panel had invoked the Establishment Clause to invalidate a display of the Ten Commandments on the courthouse lawn in Stigler, Oklahoma...

IRS Is Investigating Virginia Church

Posted on July 31, 2009
According to the Washington Post, the IRS is investigating Sterling, Virginia's Calvary Temple. (Washington Post background article on Calvary Temple.) The investigation is apparently focused on Pastor Star R. Scott who controls the church's $8.5 million in real estate and hundreds of thousands of dollars of autos used in a "racing ministry...

Nigerian Islamist Leader Killed In Police Custody

Posted on July 31, 2009
Nigeria's Vanguard yesterday reported that Mohammed Yusuf, head of the fundamentalist Islamic group Boko Haram, has been killed after being taken into police custody. Recent violence in northern Nigeria by Boko Haram rebels has killed some 300. (See prior posting...

Settlement Reached In Church's Use of Pensacola FL Park

Posted on July 31, 2009
Alliance Defense Fund yesterday announced that a settlement has been reached in the lawsuit brought against the city of Pensacola, Florida by St. Faustina Old Catholic Church challenging restrictions on use of a downtown park for a weekly picnic by a Bible study group that shared its food with the hungry...

Some Polish Catholics Protest Upcoming Madonna Concert

Posted on July 31, 2009
August 15 is the Catholic feast of the Assumption of the Holy Virgin Mary. Freemuse and Indeks 73 both report this week that in Poland, conservative Catholics are protesting the Madonna concert scheduled for that day in Warsaw. Appeals are being made to the President of the city Warsaw, the mayor of Bemowo (the Warsaw district where the concert is going to take place) and the Minister of the Interior and Administration to convince them to cancel or postpone the concert...

Judge Allows Temporary Occupancy of Synagogue After Code Controversy

Posted on July 31, 2009
The Middletown (NY) Times Herald-Record yesterday reported on a building code controversy between the town of Bethel, New York and the local Satmar Bungalow Colony of Hasidic Jews. Apparently town building inspector Tim Dexter issued a building permit for a synagogue and community center building without plans havng gone through the town Planning Board...

Navy Affiliated Website Ends Ban On Religious Discussion Groups

Posted on July 31, 2009
Last month, Liberty Counsel complained to the Navy about the discussion board Guidelines on its Navy for Moms website. They banned religious discussions and the creation of religious discussion groups on the site. (See prior posting.) On Wednesday, Liberty Counsel announced that the Guidelines have been modified...

Federal Claims Court Agrees That Religious Foundation Is Not A "Church"

Posted on July 30, 2009
In Foundation of Human Understanding v. United States, (Fed. Cl., July 21, 2009), the U.S. Court of Federal Claims agreed with the Internal Revenue Service that the Foundation of Human Understanding, while qualifying as a non-profit organization, had lost its status as a "church" under IRC § 170(b)(1)(A)(i)...

Atheist Delivers Protest Invocation At County Commission Meeting

Posted on July 30, 2009
On Tuesday in Cobb County, Georgia, Edward Buckner, president of American Atheists and candidate for state Attorney General, used the invocation time at the county Board of Commissioners meeting to stage a protest against invocations. Today's Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Bruckner requested that he be allowed to deliver the invocation, and that Commission chairman Samuel Olens granted the request...

AU Wants Senate Committee To Question Army Head Nominee On Church-State Issues

Posted on July 30, 2009
Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee holds a hearing to consider the nomination of John M. McHugh as Secretary of the Army. McHugh is currently a Republican member of the House of Representatives from New York, and was previously the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee...

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