Religion & Law

Canadian Preacher's Rights Infringed By Calgary's Limits On Use of Parks

Posted on November 02, 2010
A Canadian court in Calgary, Alberta ruled yesterday that Calgary city parks rules barring the distribution of free food, posting signs and gathering people together for religious services violates the religious freedom rights of street preacher Artur Pawlowski...

Israel Criticizes UNESCO Vote Classifying Two Biblical Sites As Palestinian

Posted on November 02, 2010
JTA reported  on Sunday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has criticized as absurd a vote last month by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization that classified two historical Biblical sites as "an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territories...

RLUIPA Challenge Filed To Michigan Town's Law

Posted on November 02, 2010
Crain's Detroit Business reports that a RLUIPA challenge to a Hazel Park, Michigan zoning ordinance was filed last week by the Salvation Temple Church which is seeking to open a church on residential property that has been vacant since 2002. The challenged ordinance, passed in 2005, bars religious institutions in areas zoned commercial or industrial...

Supreme Court Hears Arguments In RLUIPA Damages Lawsuit

Posted on November 02, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court today heard oral arguments in Sossamon v. Texas (full transcript). At issue is whether states and state officials in their official capacities may be sued for damages under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act...

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52 Dead In Iraq After Attack On Catholic Church

Posted on November 01, 2010
In Iraq yesterday, security forces stormed a Syrian Catholic Church that was taken over by terrorists wearing suicide vests. At least 52 people, including a priest, have been killed. It is unclear how many were killed by terrorists and how many were casualties of the security force's raid...

Arizona To Try Utah Appointed Fiduciary For FLDS Property On Trespass Charge

Posted on November 01, 2010
An Arizona judge last week refused to dismiss criminal trespass charges against Bruce Wisan, the special fiduciary appointed by Utah courts to reform the United Effort Plan trust that holds property of members of the FLDS Church.  According to yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune, Wisan is charged with authorizing a former FLDS member to break into homes in Colorado City, Arizona, one of the twin towns occupied by the polygamous FLDS group, to change locks on the houses...

Recent Articles Of Interest

Posted on November 01, 2010
From SSRN:Mary Jean Dolan, Salazar v. Buono: The Cross Between Endorsement and History, (Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy, Vol. 105, p. 42, 2010).Mary Jean Dolan, P.S. Untold Stories and the Cross National Monument, (October 26, 2010).Haider Ala Hamoudi, Ornamental Repugnancy: Identitarian Islam and the Iraqi Constitution, (St...

British Government Says Church of England Is Not Preventing Bogus Marriages

Posted on October 31, 2010
British government officials are accusing the Church of England of failing to take sufficient steps to prevent bogus marriages of foreigners to British citizens.  Marriage gives the foreign spouse the right to stay in Britain and claim government benefits...

Atheist Group Forms In Russia To Support A Secular Russian Society

Posted on October 31, 2010
Yesterday's Georgian Daily reports that in Russia, a group of atheists has come together to form the "Sanity Public Foundation." The new organization is designed to support and defend the secular character of the Russian state. Art. 14 of the Russian Constitution declares: "1...

Recent Prisoner Free Excercise Cases

Posted on October 31, 2010
In Lockamy v. Dunbar, (5th Cir., Oct. 29, 2010), the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected an inmate's claim that his rights under RLUIPA were violated by officials' classification of pages he tore out of a religious magazine as contraband and their refusal to mail them out for him...

Malaysian Court Allows Women's Rights Group To Call Themselves "Sisters in Islam"

Posted on October 30, 2010
AFP reports that yesterday a court in Malaysia dismissed a lawsuit seeking to keep a vocal women's rights group from using the name "Sisters in Islam."  The suit was filed by the Malaysian Assembly of Mosque Youth who claimed that the title used by the women's group was confusing to Muslims...

British City Council Says Christian Views Opposing Gay Rights Disqualifies Couple As Foster Parents

Posted on October 30, 2010
In Britain, a High Court hearing is scheduled to begin on Monday in a challenge to action taken by the Derby City Council to disqualify as potential foster parents a Christian couple who believe that homosexuality is unacceptable. Today's London Telegraph reports that the action was taken after a social worker discovered Eunice and Owen Johns' views...

Yesterday Was Anniversary of Cylinder of Cyrus the Great

Posted on October 30, 2010
The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies reminds us that yesterday was the International Day of Cyrus the Great. On October 29, 539 BCE, the Persian king, Cyrus, ordered what some have called the first human rights decree  to be inscribed on a clay cylinder...

Court Upholds Biblically-Based Mediation Agreement

Posted on October 29, 2010
In Woodlands Christian Academy v. Weibust, (TX App., Oct. 7, 2010), a Texas appellate court upheld an arbitration clause in an employment agreement requiring disputes to initially be submitted for settlement by Biblically-based mediation. It rejected arguments that the agreement is unconscionable because it requires "biblical scripture" to be substituted for the law of the case...

Philippine Tour Guide Pleads Not Guilty To Offending Religious Feelings

Posted on October 29, 2010
In the Philippines, Carlos Celdran, a tour guide and reproductive health activist, yesterday plead not guilty to charges of violating Section 133 of the Philippines Revised Criminal Code which imposes criminal penalties on "anyone who, in a place devoted to religious worship or during the celebration of any religious ceremony shall perform acts notoriously offensive to the feelings of the faithful...

State Proclamations On National Day of Prayer Are Upheld

Posted on October 29, 2010
The Chicago Tribune reports that yesterday a Colorado state trial court judge dismissed a challenge to proclamations issued by Gov. Bill Ritter recognizing a National Day of Prayer. The lawsuit, filed by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, alleged that the proclamations violated the religious freedom clause of Colorado's constitution...

Baptist Group Will Publish Pamphlet Defending Church-State Separation

Posted on October 29, 2010
The Virginia Baptist Mission Board has approved publishing a new "layman-accessible" pamphlet to explain why the separation of church and state is crucial in protecting religious liberty. ABP reported Wednesday that the Board has adopted a resolution asserting that Baptists cannot remain true to their principles if their knowledge or collective memory of the importance of both religious liberty and separation of church and state is altered or replaced by a false version of history...

Proposal For National Panels To Oversee Islamic Financial Instruments Draws Criticism

Posted on October 29, 2010
A plan put forward by the Accounting & Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) to create separate national Shariah boards to oversee the sale of Shariah-compliant financial instruments is drawing criticism from lawyers and bankers...

US Ambassador To Human Rights Council Speaks on Defamation of Religion Proposal

Posted on October 29, 2010
Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donohoe, United States Reprentative to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday addressed the annual human rights luncheon of UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights organization that monitors the United Nations...

Suit Challenges 2009 Raid On Church of Universal Love and Music

Posted on October 28, 2010
William Pritts, founder of the controversial Church of Universal Love and Music, filed a lawsuit in a Pennsylvania federal district court on Tuesday charging the Fayette County (PA) Drug Task Force with conducting an illegal raid of a church concert last year...

Amish Elders Plead Guilty To Violating Child Abuse Reporting Requirement

Posted on October 28, 2010
Missouri Rev. Statutes Sec. 352.400.1 requires any member of the clergy who has supervisory responsibility over those in charge of children to report suspected child abuse to state authorities. In Webster County, Missouri, four Amish elders have been charged with violating the reporting requirements because they knew for six months that a member of one of the county's Amish churches had been molesting two of his children...

British Appeals Court Says Teaching Order Not Vicariously Liable For Abuse of Students

Posted on October 28, 2010
In Various Claimants v. Catholic Child Welfare Society, (Eng. and Wales Ct. App., Oct. 26, 2010), England's Court of Appeal held that the Institute of the Brothers of Christian Schools, a lay community of teachers dedicated primarily to educating the poor, is not vicariously liable for physical and sexual abuse of students who attended St...

St. Paul City Council Delays Vote To Refine Church-State Protections In Development Project

Posted on October 28, 2010
Yesterday's Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that the St. Paul (MN) City Council has delayed it vote to approve a draft agreement for a $36 million community center project that involves church as part of the plans. The proposed Payne-Maryland Project will include a city-run library, recreation center and performing arts center, but also a privately run funeral home and a building for  the Arlington Hills Lutheran church...

Japanese Court Rejects Suit By Relatives of War Victims Enshrined At Yasukuni

Posted on October 28, 2010
In Naha, Japan on Tuesday, a three-judge district court panel rejected claims by relatives of war victims against the government and a Shinto shrine in a lawsuit alleging unauthorized "collective enshrinement" of plaintiffs' relatives. The enshrinement took place at the Yasukuni Shrine in central Tokyo...

Injunction Granted To Permit Elementary Student's Distribution of Church Flyers To Classmates

Posted on October 28, 2010
In J.S. v. Holly Area Schools, (ED MI, Oct. 26, 2010), a Michigan federal district court concluded that a preliminary injunction should issue to guarantee an elementary school student the right to distribute religious flyers and invitations to a church summer camp to his classmates, so long as he distributes them in a manner that does not disrupt normal school activities...

Science Teacher Settles Establishment Clause Lawsuit By Student

Posted on October 28, 2010
Details have now become available of a previously reported settlement in an Establishment Clause lawsuit brought on behalf of a student against Mount Vernon, Ohio middle school science teacher John Freshwater. Freshwater posted the Ten Commandments in his classroom, kept a Bible on his desk, and allegedly engaged in a science experiment that resulted in a mark in the shape of a cross being placed on the student's arm...

Cert. Filed In Kentucky 10 Commandments Case

Posted on October 28, 2010
A petition for certiorari (full text) was filed yesterday in McCreary County, Kentucky v. ACLU of Kentucky.  In the case, 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...

DOE Returns To Prior Policy On Religious-Ethnic Discrimination On Campuses

Posted on October 27, 2010
JTA reports that in new guidance issued yesterday by the U.S. Department of Education on bullying, DOE made clear that it is returning to its 2004 policy on religious discrimination designed to permit the application of federal civil rights laws to anti-Semitic incidents on campuses, as well as to discrimination against Arab Muslims and Sikhs at schools receiving federal funds...

New Report Issued On Impact of Blasphemy Laws

Posted on October 27, 2010
Freedom House last week issued a 138-page report titled Policing Belief: The Impact of Blasphemy Laws on Human Rights. Examining blasphemy and religious insult laws in seven countries, the report concludes that:blasphemy laws are often vaguely worded and ill-defined, making them prone to arbitrary or overly broad application, particularly in settings where there are no checks and balances in place to prevent such abuses...

California Court Upholds Sexual Harassment Award To Firefighters Ordered To Drive In LGBT Pride Parade

Posted on October 27, 2010
In Ghiotto v. City of San Diego, (CA App. Oct. 14, 2010), a California state appellate court upheld a trial court's award of damages for sexual harassment and an award of attorneys' fees to four firefighters who were required, over their personal objections, to drive a fire engine in the San Diego Pride Parade celebrating the local LGBT community...

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