Religion & Law

Bullying and Discrimination Against Students On Religious and Other Grounds Banned By New NY Law

Posted on September 17, 2010
On Monday, New York Governor David Patterson singed into law the Dignity for All Students Act.  The new law prohibits bullying of students by other students or school employees, as well as discrimination against students, taking place on school property or at a school function when the bullying or discrimination is based on the victim's actual or perceived race, color, weight, national origin, ethnic group, religion, religious practice, disability, sexual orientation, gender or sex...

Restaurant Chain Sues Church For Trademark Infringement

Posted on September 17, 2010
CNN reported yesterday that the pancake restaurant chain IHOP has filed a trademark infringement lawsuit in a California federal district court against a Kansas City, Missouri based church group known as International House of Prayer. The church uses the "IHOP" acronym widely...

Native American Church Sues To Prevent Peyote Arrests

Posted on September 17, 2010
The Oklevueha Native American Church on Monday filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Utah seeking to enjoin state and federal officials from arresting or bringing criminal charges against church members for their use of Peyote.  Yesterday's Salt Lake Tribune reports that members of the federally recognized Native American Oklevueha Church have been harassed, arrested and prosecuted in Utah...

New Jersey Transit Fires Employee For Burning Pages From Qur'an

Posted on September 16, 2010
During a protest on Sept. 11 in New York City at the site of a proposed mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero, Derek Fenton who has worked for New Jersey Transit for 11 years burned pages from a Qur'an. Police took Fenton away from the protest, but did not arrest him...

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Court Says Limitation Period Has Expired On Child Sex Abuse Case From 1940's

Posted on September 16, 2010
According to yesterday's Newark (NJ) Star Ledger, a New Jersey state trial judge has dismissed on statute of limitations grounds a lawsuit filed by two men claiming physical and sexual abuse by nuns at an orphanage over 65 years ago. New Jersey's statute of limitations allows child sex abuse claims to be filed up to two years after reasonable discovery that an injury was caused by abuse...

Many In Britain Have Negative Attitudes Toward Pope's State Visit

Posted on September 16, 2010
Several stories yesterday outlined the negative feelings among many in Britain about the Pope's visit that begins today.  Aol News reports that a large percentage oppose the government's plans to pay for part of the Pope's security and hotels, as it does when any other head of state visits...

Parents Complain That High Schoolers Were Disciplines For Leaving Donuts and Religious Messages In Teachers' Lounge

Posted on September 16, 2010
In Roswell, New Mexico, 200 members of Church on the Move showed up at Tuesday's Roswell Independent School Board meeting to protest suspensions and detentions handed out to 25 students for leaving donuts with religious messages in the teachers' lounges of their high schools...

California Deputy Sheriff Sues County For Religious Discrimination Growing Out of Mel Gibson Arrest

Posted on September 16, 2010
Last week, Los Angeles sheriff deputy James Mee filed suit in California state court charging the Sheriff's Department with religious discrimination, retaliation and harassment growing out of Mee's arrest in 2006 of actor Mel Gibson on drunk driving charges...

Ugly Battle Between Bank and Synagogue Plays Out In Bankruptcy Court

Posted on September 16, 2010
Yesterday's Palm Beach (FL) Post reports on a rather ugly battle between a Chabad synagogue in Boynton Beach, Florida and Stonegate Bank that made the synagogue a $3.8 million loan in 2007 that was supposed to have been used to expand Chabad's campus...

Indiana Church Sues Over Landmarking of Its Building

Posted on September 16, 2010
A Cumberland, Indiana church last week filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the decision by the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission to designate the church's property and building as an historic area infringes the Church's free exercise rights under the U...

County Officials Again Wary of Sanitation Code Violations In Kaparot Ceremonies

Posted on September 15, 2010
As the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur approaches (it begins Friday evening), authorities in Rockland County, New York are again expecting sanitation code violations to arise from the practice of many strictly Orthodox Jews to use live chickens in the traditional ceremony of kaparot...

Pope's State Visit To Britain Begins Thursday

Posted on September 15, 2010
Pope Benedict XVI begins a four-day state visit to Great Britain tomorrow. The full schedule for the visit, which begins in Edinburgh with a visit to the Queen in the Palace of Holyroodhouse, is posted on the Vatican's website.Yesterday's Financial Times reports on some of the logistical issues faced by those planning the trip...

Israel's Interior Ministry Will No Longer Accept Online Payments On the Sabbath

Posted on September 15, 2010
Israel's Interior Ministry accepts online payments for various services, such as renewing a passport, replacing a lost identity card or obtaining a permit to hire a foreign worker.  Haaretz reported yesterday that Interior Minister Eli Yishai, of the religious Shas Party, has ordered that the Ministry's computers be reprogrammed so they will not accept payments on the Jewish Sabbath or Jewish holidays...

Justice Breyer Says 1st Amendment Protection of Qur'an Burning Is Unclear

Posted on September 15, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, in an interview broadcast on ABC News Good Morning America yesterday, said that whether burning the Qur'an is protected by the First Amendment is still an open question.  He told interviewer George Stephanopoulos: "[Justice] Holmes said [the First Amendment] doesn?t mean you can shout 'fire' in a crowded theater...

Suit Seeks Religious Exemption From Catholic School For Immunization Requirement

Posted on September 14, 2010
Fox News yesterday reported on a lawsuit filed in a Nassau County, New York state court against a Catholic high school by parents of a 14-year old seeking to require the school to accept their religious objections to vaccination requirements and enroll their son...

Australian University Suspends Lawyer Over Smoking of Bible And Qur'an Pages On YouTube

Posted on September 14, 2010
In Australia, the Queensland University of Technology has placed research lawyer Alex Stewart on leave after he posted a 12-minute video on YouTube showing him smoking what he says were grass clippings wrapped in pages of the Bible and the Qur'an. The video was titled "Bible of Koran--which burns best?" Today's London Telegraph describes the video on which Stewart, an organizer with the Brisbane Atheists, calls the Bible and Qur'an "just books...

Street Preacher's Lawsuit Challenges DeWitt, NY Noise Ordinance

Posted on September 14, 2010
Yesterday's Syracuse (NY) Post-Standard reports that a lawsuit has been filed in a New York federal district by a Christian preacher seeking to have the DeWitt, New York noise ordinance declared unconstitutional.  Traveling Catholic Christian evangelist Nicholas Auricchio was taken to a police station and cited last year for preaching in a loud voice on a public sidewalk...

11th Circuit Grants En Banc Review In Court Holding Cell Headscarf Case

Posted on September 14, 2010
CBS 5 reported yesterday that the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has granted en banc review in Khatib v. County of Orange. In the case, the 11th Circuit 3-judge panel, by a 2-1 vote concluded that a court house holding cell is not covered by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act...

Raelians Sue Pope Benedict XVI In British Court

Posted on September 14, 2010
In Great Britain, the European Raelian Movement has filed a lawsuit in Britain's High Court against Pope Benedict XVI charging him with violating international human rights law and committing genocide in Africa by continuing to claim that condoms do not prevent the spread of AIDS...

Justice Department Sues California City Under RLUIPA Over Buddhist Temple Use Permit

Posted on September 14, 2010
A press release by the U.S. Department of Justice yesterday reports that the federal government has filed a lawsuit against the city of Walnut, California, charging that it violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act when it refused to issue a conditional use permit to the Chung Tai Zen Center for it to operate a Buddhist house of worship on land it owned...

France's Senate Passes Ban on Burqa and Niqab

Posted on September 14, 2010
France's Senate today, by a vote of 246-1, approved a bill banning wearing anywhere in public of garments such as the niqab or burqa that include a full-face veil.  The National Assembly, the lower house of France's Parliament has already approved the bill...

11th Circuit Rejects Free Exercise Challenge To City's Business Regulation

Posted on September 13, 2010
In Manseau v. City of Miramar, (11th Cir., Sept. 10, 2010), the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a free exercise claim brought against the city of Miramar, Florida by a couple who were fined for a number of code violations for operating a commercial roofing business out of their residence...

Senegalese Court Convicts Muslim Holy Men of Violating Ban on Use of Children For Begging

Posted on September 13, 2010
Under pressure from human rights groups and U.S. foreign aid agencies, authorities in Senegal last month reversed a long-enrenched custom and banned marabouts-- Muslim holy men-- from enlisting children to beg for them.  Then, according to yesterday's New York Times, last week for the first time seven marabouts were convicted by a court in Dakar of violating the ban...

Texas Gubernatorial Candidates Give Views On Teaching of Creationism/ Intelligent Design

Posted on September 13, 2010
The San Angelo (TX) Standard Times yesterday published responses of of Texas Gov. Rick Perry and his opponent in the November election, Houston Mayor Bill White, to questions on K-12 Education.  Both were asked: "Explain where you stand on evolution-creationism being taught in the schools...

Turkish Voters Approve Constitutional Changes That Will Pack Court To Approve More Religious Accommodation

Posted on September 13, 2010
In Turkey yesterday, a 58% vote of the electorate approved a package of constitutional changes. Among them were ones that increase the number of judges on the country's Constitutional Court and give Parliament a greater say in appointing judges.  Yesterday's Toronto Globe & Mail reports that these changes pave the way for appointment of judges who will not strike down legislation accommodating religious practices, such as giving women the right to wear head scarves in universities.

Ministerial Exception Applies Regardless of Employees Subjective Intent

Posted on September 13, 2010
In Green v. Concordia University, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94168 (D OR, Sept. 8, 2010), adopting a federal magistrate's recommendations (2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94176, June 23, 2010), an Oregon federal district court held that the ministerial exception requires dismissal of a of plaintiff's claim that she was improperly denied admission on the basis of her age and other factors to the Director of Christian Education program of Concordia University, a Christian liberal arts university...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on September 13, 2010
From SSRN:Kevin J. Worthen, The NCAA and Religion: Insights About Non-State Governance from Sunday Play and End Zone Celebrations, (Utah Law Review, Vol. 2010, pp. 123-140).Michael W. McConnell, Schism, Plague, and Late Rites in the French Quarter: The Strange Story Behind the Supreme Court?s First Free Exercise Case, (September 10, 2010)...

South African Court Bars Bible Burning Counterprotest

Posted on September 12, 2010
Spero News reports that on Friday, a South African judge barred a South African businessman and law student,  Mohammed Vawda, from organizing a Bible burning day to protest the then-planned Quran burning by Rev. Terry Jones in Florida. The South African lawsuit was filed by an Islamic intellectual organization know as The Scholars of Truth...

High Schooler Says Nose Stud Is Religious Expression

Posted on September 12, 2010
In Johnston County, North Carolina, Clayton High School freshman Ariana Iacono is in a fight with school officials over the school's dress code. The student, who along with her mother is a member of the Church of Body Modification says her wearing a nose stud is an expression of her religious beliefs...

Today Is 60th Anniversary of JFK's Speech Dispelling Concern Over Catholic As President

Posted on September 12, 2010
Today is the 60th anniversary of the historic speech (full text and audio) by then presidential candidate John F. Kennedy to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association aimed at dispelling concerns about a Catholic becoming President. Here are a few excerpts:I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishoners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him...

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