Religion & Law

RLUIPA Lawsuit Challenges Zoning Limits on Church Affiliated Outreach Center

Posted on November 16, 2010
A RLUIPA challenge to the zoning laws of the city of Kelso, Washington was filed Friday in federal district court in Washington by the Victory Center which welcomes young people and the needy for fellowship, meals, worship and classes. The Center is affiliated with the Kelso Church of Truth and Mountain Ministries...

Bishops' Head Defends Stance Opposing Health Care Reform Bill

Posted on November 16, 2010
Yesterday Catholic Cardinal Francis E. George, outgoing president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, delivered the opening address at the fall general assembly of the USCCB.  According to Catholic News Service, Cardinal George spent much of his time justifying the Bishops' opposition year to final passage earlier this year of the federal health care reform law...

Mullah Omar Calls On Young Educated Afghans To Defend Islamic Values

Posted on November 16, 2010
Threat Matrix yesterday published the full text of a lengthy Eid al-Adha statement by Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar. In a section of his statement addressed to university students and young educated Afghan men, Omar says:As a young educated generation and men of letters (writers) of our Islamic country, you are the leaders of tomorrow of the country...

Holder Delegates Authority To Certify Hate Crime Prosecutions; First Federal Indictments Are Handed Down

Posted on November 16, 2010
The 2009 Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act (18 USC Sec. 249) permits federal prosecution of hate crimes-- many of which would traditionally be prosecuted under state law-- only if the Attorney General or his designee certifies that one of several statutory criteria for acting federally exists...

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Israeli Government Appoints Alternative Marriage Registrars To Validate Conversions By Military Rabbis

Posted on November 15, 2010
Today's Jerusalem Post reports on the latest developments in the ongoing tensions within the governmental religious establishment over standards and procedures for conversion to Judaism. On Sunday, the government informed the High Court of Justice that the Chief Rabbinate had appointed four new rabbinical judges from the state-administered conversion courts to act as marriage registrars who could register marriages, allowing couples to bypass city registrars...

Recent Articles and Books of Interest

Posted on November 15, 2010
From SSRN:Geoffrey P. Miller, Logos and Narrative, (NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 10-78, Nov. 9, 2010).Jeremy Waldron, Two-Way Translation: The Ethics of Engaging with Religious Contributions in Public Deliberation, (NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper, Feb...

Palestinian Blogger In West Bank Faces Possible Life In Prison For Heretical Postings

Posted on November 14, 2010
AP reported Friday from the West Bank Palestinian town of Qalqilya that a mysterious blogger who angered the Arab world by his Arabic language postings blog postings and Facebook pages claiming he was God and that Muhammad had the attributes of a "primitive Bedouin" has now been caught...

San Francisco Resident Seeks Signatures For Initiative To Ban Male Circumcision

Posted on November 14, 2010
San Francisco (CA) resident Lloyd Schofield has submitted a proposed initiative measure to the San Francisco Department of Elections seeking to ban circumcision of males under the age of 18. The proposed ban would include circumcisions performed for religious reasons...

Israeli Civil Court Reverses Rabbinical Court's Enforcement of Illegal Contract

Posted on November 14, 2010
Haaretz today reports on a decision by an Israeli district court in Tel Aviv taking the unusual step of reversing a decision of a rabbinical court as being in violation of public policy. At issue is an illegal agreement between two Haredi (strictly-Orthodox) real estate developers...

Saudi Supreme Court Reverses Death Sentence Imposed On TV Psychic For Sorcery

Posted on November 14, 2010
Amnesty International reports that last week Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court reversed a death sentence that had been imposed on Ali Hussain Sibat, a popular psychic who had appeared on the Lebanese satellite TV channel Sheherazade. Sibat was arrested last year by Saudi religious police while he was on the omra pilgrimage in Medina, and was charged with practicing sorcery...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on November 14, 2010
In Smith v. Beauclair, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 118662 (D ID, Nov.4, 2010), an Idaho federal district court concluded that attorneys for an inmate who sued prison officials to accommodate his Cherokee religious beliefs are entitled to an award of attorneys' fees on in connection with two of plaintiff's claims on which he was deemed to be the prevailing party (wearing of beard and access to medicinal herbs)...

1st Circuit: New Hampshire Schools' Pledge of Allegiance Recitation Is Constitutional

Posted on November 13, 2010
In Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Hanover School District, (1st Cir., Nov. 12, 2010), the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an Establishment Clause challenge, as well as other constitutional challenges, to New Hampshire's School Patriot Act that requires a time during the school day for recitation of the pledge of allegiance...

Louisiana Panel Supports New Biology Textbooks Despite Objections To Their Treatment of Evolution

Posted on November 13, 2010
A Louisiana state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education advisory panel voted 8-4 yesterday to recommend adoption of new high school life science text books, despite opposition by some who argued the books should include information on the theory of intelligent design and should pose more questions about evolutionary theory...

New Jersey County Settles DOJ Lawsuit Charging Failure To Provide Religious Accommodation

Posted on November 13, 2010
The U.S. Department of Justice announced yesterday that it had reached a settlement in its Title VII lawsuit against Essex County, New Jersey. The suit was filed on behalf of an female Muslim corrections officer who was denied permission to wear a religiously-required headscarf because it violated the Department of Corrections uniform policy...

Adjunct Union Says It Should Be Recognized By NLRB At Catholic College

Posted on November 12, 2010
Riverdale, New York's Manhattan College, which holds itself out as a Catholic institution, is in the midst of a fight by its adjunct faculty to unionize.  Inside Higher Ed today reports that the school is invoking the Supreme Court's 1979 decision in NLRB v...

Pennsylvania Voter Was Required To Affirm Address By Placing Hand On Bible

Posted on November 12, 2010
Pennsylvania's election laws allow a voter who has moved to a new address in the same county can still vote by giving a "written affirmation of the change of address to poll workers in the new precinct. (Background.) Today's Philadelphia News reports that one poll worker instead required a voter to place her hand on a Bible and state her name and address before signing in...

Washington Pharmacy Board Moves Ahead On Rule Change To Permit Facilitated Referrals

Posted on November 12, 2010
As previously reported, in July the Washington State Board of Pharmacy settled a lawsuit against it by agreeing to begin rule-making proceedings to amend a controversial rule that requires pharmacies to fill all prescriptions (including Plan B, the "morning after" contraceptive) even if doing so violates their religious beliefs...

United Methodist Church Sues Break-Away Oregon Congregation

Posted on November 12, 2010
The Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church last week announced that it had filed suit in an Oregon state court against a break-away congregation, seeking to recover for UMC the real and personal property held by the Ontario,Oregon congregation...

Pakistani Court Imposes Death Sentence On Christian Woman For Blasphemy

Posted on November 12, 2010
Christian Today reports that in Pakistan on Sunday, a court in Punjab province sentenced a Christian woman to death for blasphemy. It also imposed a fine equivalent to two and a half years' wages. In previous blasphemy cases, the death sentence has not been carried out and this may amount instead to a life sentence...

Spanish Court Acquits Muslim Tourists Who Attempted To Pray In Catholic Church

Posted on November 12, 2010
A judge in Cordoba, Spain has acquitted eight Austrian tourists who were charged in March with offending Catholic religious sentiments by attempting to recite Islamic prayers in the Mezquita Cathedral.(See prior posting.) Prior to the 13th century, the building was a mosque and Spanish Muslims have long asserted the right to pray there...

UPS Packages Containing Hajj Visas Delayed By Government Inspections

Posted on November 11, 2010
AP reported on Tuesday that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection temporarily seized for inspection four separate packages containing passports for Muslims to travel to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj. In one of the cases,  17 Virginia residents sent their passports to a California travel agent who had arranged for Hajj visas with the Saudi consulate...

Rabbi Convicted of Wire Fraud and Blackmail

Posted on November 11, 2010
The Wall Street Journal reports that Rabbi Louis Balkany, dean of Bais Yaakov, a religious day school in Borough Park, New York, was convicted yesterday in federal court in Manhattan on charges of wire fraud, extortion, blackmail and making false statements...

New Church-State Separation Library Collection Dedicated

Posted on November 11, 2010
The State reports that the University of South Carolina Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library was scheduled yesterday to dedicate the Flynn T. Harrell Collection on the Separation of Church and State. The collection assembled by Flynn T. Harrell contains books, journals, an extensive clippings collection and 45 years of correspondence on the issue.

Paper's Report On Halal Slaughtering Highlights EU Labeling Proposal

Posted on November 11, 2010
Yesterday's London Mail carried an investigative report on Halal slaughtering of animals in Britain written by a reporter who went under cover into a slaughter house posing as a business man considering buying Halal meat for a chain of stores. Reporter Danny Penman obviously came away as no fan of the slaughtering practices, describing the killing of animals without stunning them first in graphic terms...

Naval Officers Sues Seeking Conscientious Objector Status

Posted on November 11, 2010
Last week, the ACLU announced that it had filed a habeas corpus petition on behalf of a naval officer on active duty at Groton naval base, challenging the Navy's refusal to discharge him as a conscientious objector.  In Izbicki v. Mabus, (D CT, filed 11/3/2010), (full text of petition), Ensign Michael Izbicki alleged that after he graduated the Naval Academy, his Christian beliefs developed and he ultimately concluded that he could not take someone's life or aid others in doing so...

In Indonesia, Obama Speaks About Religious Pluralism In Major Address

Posted on November 10, 2010
Yesterday as part of his trip to Asia, President Obama delivered a major speech at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta. (CNN) Obama spent four years as a young boy in Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population.  A substantial portion of the President's remarks (full text) focused on religion in Indonesia...

U.S. Summarizes and Responds To U.N. Universal Periodic Review Of Human Rights Conditions

Posted on November 10, 2010
Politico reports that last week in Geneva more than 30 U.S. officials went through a respectful, but challenging, interactive dialog with members of the United Nations Human Rights Council as part of the Council's Universal Periodic Review each four years of every country's human rights record...

Another FLDS Conviction: 6 Years In Prison

Posted on November 10, 2010
A state court jury in San Angelo, Texas has sentenced 25-year old Kieth Dutson, a member of the FLDS church, to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine on on charges of sexual assault of a child.  Dutson was the seventh, and youngest, person to be tried on charges growing out of evidence seized during a 2008 raid on the FLDS Yearning for Zion Ranch...

Vatican Official Speaks At INTERPOL Conference

Posted on November 10, 2010
Zenit reports on an address Monday by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, secretary of the Governorate of Vatican City State, to the 79th General Assembly of Interpol meeting in Doha, Qatar. (Full text of remarks.)  Apparently the Archbishop chose to address the forum of police chiefs and law enforcement officers from around the world because of the Vatican's growing concern over violence against Christians in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East...

Opinion Released In TRO Against Oklahoma Anti-Shariah Amendment

Posted on November 10, 2010
As previously reported, earlier this week an Oklahoma federal district court issued a temporary restraining order barring Oklahoma's State Board of Elections from certifying last week's election results reflecting approval of a proposed amendment to the Oklahoma constitution that bars state courts from considering international law or Shariah law in deciding cases...

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