Religion & Law

Ft. Wayne Ends Released Time Classes In Favor of After-School Program

Posted on August 28, 2010
Today's Ft. Wayne, Indiana Journal Gazette reports that a lawsuit filed this summer challenging the released-time religious education program in a Ft. Wayne school (see prior posting) has now apparently become moot. The challenged Weekday Religious Education program had been operating in Ft...

Fired Ohio Employees Settle Their Religoius Discrimination Suit

Posted on August 28, 2010
A settlement was filed with the Ohio Court of Claims yesterday in a suit against the state by three former employees who made up the entire staff of the Ohio Workers' Compensation Council.  The former employees-- two staff attorneys and an executive assistant-- accused the Council's director Virginia McInerney of religious discrimination, wrongful discharge, harassment and retaliation...

Muslim Woman Settles In Suit Claiming "Outrage" Over Treatment During Search of Her Apartment

Posted on August 27, 2010
Yesterday's Seattle Times reports that federal officials have settled a lawsuit brought by a Somali Muslim woman over conduct of DEA and police officials in searching her Seattle (WA) apartment in a raid seeking evidence of khat distribution. In May, a federal district court in Jama v...

Glenn Beck Hosts Conservative Rally; Some Evangelicals Object To Participiation Because of Beck's Mormon Beliefs

Posted on August 27, 2010
Radio and television commentator Glenn Beck is hosting an event tonight at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. titled "America's Divine Destiny." Beck's website describes the event as follows: Guided by uplifting music, nationally-known religious figures from all faiths will unite to deliver messages reminiscent to those given during the struggles of America's earliest days...

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Staten Island Hosts Its First Official Iftar

Posted on August 27, 2010
SI Live reports on the first ever Iftar to be held at Staten Island (NY)'s Borough Hall.  The Ramadan event was attended by Borough President James P. Molinaro, even though he is an outspoken critic of plans to build a Muslim community center and mosque in lower Manhattan...

O Centro Case Finally Dismissed By Federal District Court

Posted on August 27, 2010
In 2006, in Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government cannot block a New Mexico church from using a hallucinogenic tea for religious purposes, and remanded the case for further proceedings...

U.S. Report To U.N. On Human Rights Record Lauds Free Exercise Rights

Posted on August 27, 2010
In 2006, the United Nations General Assembly established the Universal Perioidic Review process through which the human rights records of U.N. member states are assessed every four years. The State Department announced this week that on Aug. 20 the United States submitted its  report (full text) to the U...

US Bishop Laments "Post-Christian" World

Posted on August 26, 2010
In a strongly worded address delivered to the Canon Law Association of Slovakia on Tuesday (full text), Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput argued that events in both the United States and Europe "suggest an emerging, systematic discrimination against the Church that now seems inevitable...

Groups Protest Ban On Religion-Based Hiring In Proposed SAMHSA Legislation

Posted on August 26, 2010
Today's New York Times and a press release from World Vision report that over 100 religious organizations have written to every member of Congress objecting to a provision in HR 5466, the proposed SAMHSA Modernization Act of 2010 reauthorizing the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration...

New York Bingo Scheme Defrauds Greek Orthodox Diocese

Posted on August 26, 2010
In Queens, New York, three men were indicted last week on 714 gambling related counts in a scheme that defrauded the Greek Orthodox Diocese of America out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.  According to yesterday's Queens Gazette, bingo profits were supposed to go to the Greek Orthodox Diocese, but the affiliated charities were bogus organizations that allowed the three men to take some $830,000 from bingo and illegal side bets for themselves over several years...

Virginia AG Gives Guidance On Holiday Displays

Posted on August 25, 2010
Virginia's Attorney General last week, at the request of Loudon County officials, issued an official advisory opinion (Opinion 10-067) on permissible holiday displays. The opinion concludes that the state constitution's establishment clause is narrower than the federal one and does not limit holiday displays on public property, though it does prohibit favoritism toward a particular sect or denomination...

South Carolina AG Says Non-Profit Group's "I Believe" Plates Are Constitutional

Posted on August 25, 2010
Last year a federal district court held that a statute authorizing South Carolina's "I Believe" license plates-- carrying the image of a cross superimposed on a stained glass window-- violates the Establishment Clause.  (See prior posting.) Yesterday's Myrtle Beach (SC) Sun News now however reports that state Attorney General Henry McMaster has issued an opinion ruling that a new plan for similar "I Believe" plates is constitutional...

2nd Circuit: Jewish Parole Division Employee May Proceed With Hostile Work Environment Claim

Posted on August 25, 2010
In Leifer v. New York State Divsion of Parole, (2d Cir., Aug. 23, 2010), the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Title VII religious discrimination and retaliation claims by a Jewish employee of the New York Division of Parole. Plaintiff complained that mandatory meetings were scheuduled on the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah in 2001 and Shavuot in 2003...

Suit Seeks To Enforce FOIA Request For FBI Records on Surveillance of Muslims

Posted on August 25, 2010
The ACLU of Northern California, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian yesterday filed a lawsuit against the FBI seeking to enforce Freedom of Information Act requests filed in July asking for records relating to the surveillance of Muslim communities in California...

9th Circuit Reinstates Evangelist's Defamation Claim Against ABC's 20/20

Posted on August 25, 2010
In Price v. Stossel, (9th Cir., Aug. 24, 2010), the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a California district court's early-stage dismissal under California's anti-SLAPP statute of a defamation claim by a prosperity gospel evangelist...

Egypt Prosecuting Muslim Publisher Over Introduction To Christian Bible

Posted on August 25, 2010
According to Daily News Egypt, Egypt's Prosecutor General on Monday referred Ahmed Abdallah Abo-Islam, a publisher of Islamic books, to a state security court on charges of contempt of the Christian religion.  A complaint had been filed against the publisher by Naguib Gobrael, a Coptic lawyer who is head of the Egyptian Union for Human Rights...

FLDS Defendant Will Challenge Texas Bigamy Statute

Posted on August 25, 2010
At a state court hearing Tuesday in San Angelo, Texas, attorneys for FLDS member Wendell Loy Nielsen said they will challenge the constitutionality of Texas' bigamy statute when Nielsen goes on trial in October. Yesterday's San Angelo (TX) Standard Times reports that the prosecution of Nielsen is the first growing out of the April 2008 raid on the FLDS Yearning for Zion Ranch that does not directly involve sexual assault of a child...

Orthodox Jewish Community In New Jersey Split Over Sex Abuse Charges In State Court

Posted on August 25, 2010
A lengthy article in today's Asbury Park (NJ) Press reports on the rift in Lakewood, New Jersey's Orthodox Jewish community over the process that led to criminal sexual assault and child endangerment charges being brought against Yosef Kolko, a former camp counselor and local yeshiva teacher...

Bonfire Permit Denied To Group Seeking To Burn Qurans As 9/11 Protest

Posted on August 24, 2010
As previously reported, the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida has created a furor by announcing its plans to host an International Burn A Quran Day on Sept. 11. The Gainesville Sun reported last week that the city has refused to grant Dove Outreach a permit to have an open bonfire...

Preliminary Injunction Bars Application of Obama Administration Stem Cell Research Guidelines

Posted on August 24, 2010
Yesterday in Sherley v. Sebelius, (D DC, Aug. 23, 2010), the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction preventing the Obama administration from applying it Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research. Those Guidelines expanded federally funded research involving embryonic stem cells...

Compromise Near To Drop Charges Against Westboro Funeral Protester

Posted on August 24, 2010
Sarpy County, Nebraska is close to reaching an agreement with Westboro Baptist Church leader Shirley Phelps-Roper that will lead to dismissing charges of negligent child abuse and disturbing the peace that have been brought against her.  The charges grew out of a 2007 protest at the visitation before the funeral of Iraq war veteran Randy Chaney...

Bangladesh Court Says College May Not Require Religious Attire

Posted on August 24, 2010
According to yesterday's Jakarta Globe, Bangladesh's High Court has ordered the government to take action against the administrator of Rani Bhabani Women's College for requiring women to wear the burqa, and barring women from playing school sports and attending cultural activities...

9th Circuit: World Vision Exempt From Title VII Religious Discrimination Ban

Posted on August 24, 2010
The 9th Circuit yesterday, in a 2-1 decision that spawned three lengthy opinions, held that the Christian humanitarian organization, World Vision, comes within the exemption in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (42 USC 2000e-1) for "a religious corporation, association, educational institution, or society with respect to the employment of individuals of a particular religion to perform work connected with the carrying on by such corporation, association, educational institution, or society of its activities...

Church Not Entitled To Tax Exemption When House It Owns Is Vacant

Posted on August 24, 2010
The LaCrosse (WI) Tribune reports that a federal district court has rejected a claim by Asbury Methodist Church in LaCrosse that its due process and free exercise rights were infringed when it was denied a tax exemption in 2008 while its property was being converted from a tax exempt parsonage to a tax exempt hospitality house...

Court Refuses Preliminary Injunction Against Georgia's Ban On Guns In Churches

Posted on August 24, 2010
On June 4 this year, Georgia's governor signed S.B. 308 that was enacted to clarify Georgia's gun laws. Among other things, the new law prohibits the carrying of guns in any house of worship. In July, GeorgiaCarry.org. along with Baptist Tabernacle of Thomaston, Georgia, its pastor and one of its members, filed a lawsuit in state court challenging that portion of the law...

Kazakhstan Plans Offering of Shariah-Compliant Bonds

Posted on August 23, 2010
UAE's The National reported yesterday that the nation of Kazakhstan, planning its first issuance of government bonds in ten years, will issue Shariah-compliant bonds (Sukuk securities) instead of Euro bonds.  Kazakhstan is trying to become a regional Islamic finance center by 2020.

Suit Claims Religious Discrimination In Barring of Faith-Based Substance Abuse Program From County Jail

Posted on August 23, 2010
Yesterday's Santa Rosa (FL) Press Gazette reports that a federal religious discrimination lawsuit was filed Friday by Milton, Florida's First Apostolic Church seeking to prohibit Santa Rosa County Sheriff Wendell Hall from excluding the church's faith-based Alcohol and Chemical Treatment Series program from the Santa Rosa County Jail...

Recent Articles of Interest

Posted on August 23, 2010
From SSRN:Peter G. Danchin, Defaming Muhammad: Dignity, Harm, and Incitement to Religious Hatred, (Duke Forum for Law & Social Change, Vol. 2, pp. 5-38, 2010).Mary Jean Dolan, Government Identity Speech and Religion: Establishment Clause Limits after Summum, (William & Mary Bill of Rights, Vol...

Debate on RFRA: Hamilton vs. Friedman

Posted on August 23, 2010
PublicSquare.net has posted a 4-part debate between Marci Hamilton and me on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.  Actually the essays comprising the debate were written a number of months ago-- there was substantial delay in the exchange actually getting posted...

Malaysian Appellate Court Says Status As Muslim Up To Syariah Court

Posted on August 22, 2010
According to Bernama, Malaysia's Court of Appeal ruled yesterday that only the Syariah Court has jurisdiction to determine whether someone is Muslim.  The ruling came in an appeal of a 2005 lower court decision refusing to turn the body of former army commando and famed Mt...

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