Religion & Law

Requiring Christian School To Obtain Use Permit Did Not Violate RLUIPA

Posted on September 25, 2010
In County of Los Angeles v. Sahag-Mesrob Armenian Christian School, (CA App., Sept. 22, 2010), a California state appellate court held that RLUIPA was not violated by the county's insistence that a Christian High School obtain a conditional use permit and comply with environmental laws in order to operate...

Faith-Based Head In Bush White House Says Obama Is Politicizing The Office

Posted on September 25, 2010
Jim Towey, director of faith-based initiatives in the George W. Bush White House, writes an op-ed column in today's Wall Street Journal criticizing what he sees as the politicization of the office in the Obama White House.  He focuses on a conference call to leaders of faith based and community groups last Tuesday by the President and his director of faith-based initiatives urging them to help explain the advantages of the Obama health care plan to their constituencies...

GOP Pledge To America Includes Some Promises On Issues of Religious Concern

Posted on September 25, 2010
On Thursday, House Republicans released their agenda as the November elections approach.  Titled A Pledge to America (full text), the document deals primarily with economic issues, health care, defense and restoring trust in government...

Libraries Ban 16-Year Old For Proselytizing Patrons

Posted on September 22, 2010
Yesterday's Columbus, Georgia Ledger-Enquirer reports that the Chattahoochee Valley (GA) library system has told a 16-year old boy that he is banned from all the system's libraries for six months because his proselytizing of library patrons is disruptive to conducting library business...

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Prominent Georgia Pastor Charged In Lawsuit With Sexual Abuse of Young Male Church Members

Posted on September 22, 2010
CNN reported yesterday that a lawsuit has been filed in a Georgia state court against a prominent Atlanta pastor by two men alleging that the preacher used his spiritual authority to coerce young male members and employees of his church into sexual relationships...

Today Is 10th Anniversary of RLUIPA

Posted on September 22, 2010
Today is the 10th anniversary of President Clinton's signing into law the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The Justice Department yesterday announced the release of a Report (full text) to mark the occasion.  The report outlines the Department's enforcement record under the statute which, as summarized by DOJ: "protects places of worship and other religious uses of property from discrimination and unreasonably burdensome regulation in zoning and landmarking law, and also protects the religious freedom of persons confined to institutions such as prisons, mental health facilities and state-run nursing homes...

EEOC Suit Claims Hiring Discrimination Against Rastafarian

Posted on September 22, 2010
The EEOC has filed a lawsuit in a Virginia federal district court against Lawrence Transportation System of Waynesboro, Virginia, on behalf of a Rastafarian job applicant who claims he was denied employment because he wears his hair in dreadlocks. Yesterday's News Virginian reports that the lawsuit seeks back pay and punitive damages for Christopher Woodson as well as a change in company policies...

Vatican Bank Officials Targeted In Money Laundering Investigation

Posted on September 22, 2010
AP reported yesterday that top officials of the Vatican's Institute for the Works of Religion-- the Vatican Bank-- are under investigation by Italian financial police in an investigation of money laundering.  Authorities seized $30 million from a Vatican bank account at the Rome branch of Credito Artigiano Spa as the funds were awaiting transfer to accounts at JP Morgan and Banca del Fucino...

Did White House Medal of Honor Ceremony Conform To Air Force Guidelines On Chaplains' Prayers?

Posted on September 22, 2010
The White House ceremony yesterday (video and transcript of President's remarks) awarding the Medal of Honor posthumously to Chief Master Sergeant Richard L. Etchberger began with an invocation by Air Force Deputy Chief of Chaplains, Brigadier General David H...

Israeli Court Says Tenant Can Build Sukkah In Apartment Building Courtyard Over Owners' Objections

Posted on September 22, 2010
Tonight begins the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.  In Israel, a Magistrate's Court in Tel Aviv on Monday issued an interim injunction permitting tenants in an apartment building to build a Sukkah-- the traditional temporary hut erected for the holiday-- in an apartment building's courtyard over the objections of the apartment building's owners...

Res Judicata Bars Free Exercise Challenge To Taking of Cemetery for O'Hare Expansion

Posted on September 22, 2010
In City of Chicago v. St. John's United Church of Christ, (IL App., Sept. 16, 2010), an Illinois appellate court held that res judicata bars the living relatives of individuals buried in Chicago's St. Johannes Cemetery from challenging the condemnation of the cemetery to expand O'Hare Airport...

PUBLICATION SCHEDULE: LOOK FOR THE NEXT NEW POSTINGS ON RELIGION CLAUSE ON SUNDAY MORNING

Posted on September 22, 2010

Confession To Pastor Not Privileged After Warning That Authorities Would Be Told

Posted on September 21, 2010
In a Montana trail court decision handed down in May and just now becoming available on LEXIS, the court refused to suppress evidence of a confession by defendant made to a pastor of Faith Chapel. Defendant Jeffrey Hardman came to the pastor before going to police to turn himself in, telling the pastor that he was fearful whether God could forgive him for the mistakes he made including his responsibility for the death of Michael Blattie when defendant's gun discharged in a fight with Blattie...

Court Dismisses Complaint That Charter School Undercut Familial Religious Fasting Practice

Posted on September 21, 2010
In Meadows v. Lesh, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 97631 (WD NY,Sept. 17, 2010), a parent sued a charter school for religious discrimination alleging that the school principal undercut the request by the mother of a  school child that the school respect their "familial religious practice" of fasting from 7 a...

9th Circuit: Christian Student Lacks Standing To Challenge College's Sexual Harassment Policy

Posted on September 21, 2010
In Lopez v. Candaele, (9th Cir., Sept. 17, 2010), the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Christian student at Los Angeles City College lacks standing to challenge the school's sexual harassment policy.  A speech professor interrupted and verbally attacked the student during a speech in which the student expressed religious opposition to same-sex marriage...

Suit Challenges Lord's Prayer At Borough Council Meetings

Posted on September 21, 2010
The ACLU of New Jersey announced yesterday that it had filed a lawsuit in state court against the Borough Council of  Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey challenging its practice of opening Council meetings with the recitation of the Lord's Prayer.  The complaint (full text) in Cadalzo v...

Condition of Suspended Sentence Does Not Violate Free Exercise Rights

Posted on September 21, 2010
In State of New Hampshire v. Perfetto,(NH Sup. Ct., Sept. 17, 2010), the New Hampshire Supreme Court held that the conditions imposed on the suspended sentence of defendant who was convicted of child pornography did not violate his right to the free exercise of religion...

More Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on September 21, 2010
In McCroy v. Douglas County Corrections Center, (8th Cir., Sept. 14, 2010), the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a Muslim prisoner's complaint that during a search for extra unauthorized linens, officers confiscated a towel he used as a prayer rug and a copy of the Koran, and that the items were not returned to him for two weeks...

Erskine College Lawsuit Over Presbyterian Church's Right To Replace Trustees Is Settled

Posted on September 20, 2010
AP reported last week that the lawsuit against General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church brought by the Alumni Association and three trustees of Erskine College in Due West, South Carolina (see prior posting) has now been settled...

Texas State Board of Education Will Consider Resolution on Anti-Christian Focus In Textbooks

Posted on September 20, 2010
The Agenda for this week's meeting of the Texas State Board of Education includes a resolution on "Balanced Treatment of Religious Groups in Textbooks."  According to the Dallas Morning News last week, the resolution warns textbook publishers not to include "pro-Islamic, anti-Christian distortions, in social study texts...

Kuwait Bans Sectarian Demonstrations As Sunni-Shiite Tensions Increase

Posted on September 20, 2010
Zawaya reports today that in Kuwait, the Ministry of Interior has placed a total ban on "sectarian" gatherings as tensions between Shiites and Sunnis in the country increase. The move comes after Shiite activist Yasser Al-Habeeb, who in 2004 fled Kuwait to London to avoid re-imprisonment, disparaged the Prophet Muhammed's wife Aisha by holding a ceremony in London to celebrate her death anniversary...

New Poll Surveys Attitudes on Church-State Issues

Posted on September 20, 2010
The First Amendment Center last week released its 2010 Poll on The State of the First Amendment. (Full poll results.) Among the results--75% strongly or mildly agreed that student speakers should be allowed to speak about their religious faith at public school events...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on September 20, 2010
From SSRN:Dermot Groome, The Church Abuse Scandal: Were Crimes Against Humanity Committed?, (Chicago Journal of International Law, Forthcoming).Jeff Redding, Queer/Religious Friendship in the Obama Era, (Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, Vol...

Pope In Britain Speaks On Religion In the Public Square

Posted on September 19, 2010
Among the numerous addresses given by Pope Benedict XVI on his current visit to Great Britain was an address to representatives of civil society, academic, cultural and entrepreneurial world, diplomatic corps and religious leaders at Westminster Hall (full text)...

Delaware Congressional Candidate Says Church-State Separation Phrase Came From Hitler

Posted on September 19, 2010
In Delaware, Tea Party candidate Glen Urquhart won this month's primary to become the Republican's candidate for the state's only seat in the House of Representatives.  He appears to have some some unusual church-state views.  Raw Story on Friday posted a video from an Urquhart campaign event in April in which Urquhart says: Do you know, where does this phrase 'separation of church and state' come from? It was not in Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists...

Lawsuit Challenges Approval of Controversial Tennessee Islamic Center Plans

Posted on September 19, 2010
The Tennessean reports that a lawsuit was filed Thursday in Rutherford County (TN) Chancery Court seeking a temporary restraining order to halt construction of a controversial Islamic center being build in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The suit claims that the county failed to give adequate advance notice under its Open Meetings Act of a May 24 Regional Planning Commission meeting at which the site plan for the Islamic center was approved unanimously...

Court OKs Prevailing Wage Requirement Applied To Religious Group's State Assisted Project

Posted on September 19, 2010
In McKinley Foundation at the University of Illinois v. Illinois Department of Labor, (IL App., Sept. 10, 2010), an Illinois appellate court held that applying the state's Prevailing Wage Act to construction of student housing by a foundation functioning as as Presbyterian ministry for college students does not violate the Establishment Clause...

Recent Prisoner Free Exercise Cases

Posted on September 19, 2010
In Musto v. Trinity Food Services, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94063 (MD FL, Sept. 9, 2010), a Florida federal district court rejected claims by an inmate that his rights under the 1st Amendment and RLUIPA were violated by his being denied certain supplemental food items with his kosher meals...

City Removes Christian Flag From Veterans Memorial

Posted on September 17, 2010
On the advice of its city attorney, King City, North Carolina's city council voted 3-1 on Monday to remove a Christian flag that had flown at the city's veterans' memorial along with the U.S., state, city and other flags. According to today's Winston-Salem Journal, the decision reverses an August city council vote to keep the flag, which carried a Latin cross inside a blue canton on a white field...

Pope Meets Queen Elizabeth; Recalls Britain's Deep Christian Roots

Posted on September 17, 2010
VIS reports on the start of Pope Benedict XVI's apostolic trip to the United Kingdom. The Pope was greeted yesterday at his first stop, in Birmingham, by Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. They met at Holyroodhouse Palace, the Queen's official residence in Scotland...

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