From NorthJersey.com (via Prof. Howard Friedman [Religion Clause]): The leaders of a city mosque filed a federal lawsuit on Sunday saying municipal officials violated their Constitutional rights of freedom of religion by naming the street where the building is located after a deceased member of the Islamic group. The lawsuit also accuses Councilman Mohammed Aktraruzzman […]
Archive | Religious Freedom
15-Year-Old Rastafarian Has Religious Freedom Right to Possess Drug Paraphernalia
So holds the Minnesota Court of Appeals in today’s In the Matter of the Welfare of J.J.M. A. (surprisingly, an opinion labeled by the court as nonprecedential). J.J.M.A. was arrested for, among other things, possession of a glass pipe used for smoking marijuana, which was covered by the state ban on possessing drug paraphernelia. Minnesota […]
Cert Petitions Filed in Contraception Mandate Cases
By Jonathan H. Adler on September 22, 2013 11:58 am in Health Care, Religious Freedom, Supreme Court
Petitions for certiorari were filed in two cases challenging the Obamacare contraception mandate last week. Both cases involve private, for-profit employers. The first was filed by Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation, seeking review of the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit holding, among other things, that corporations may not raise free […]
Bill Introduced by House Republicans Offers Broad Exemptions to Opponents of Same-Sex Marriage (and Non-Marital Sex)
By Dale Carpenter on September 19, 2013 12:51 pm in Religion and the Law, Religious Freedom, Same-Sex Marriage
Sixty members of the U.S. House of Representatives (58 Republicans and 2 Democrats) have introduced legislation, the “Marriage and Religious Freedom Act” (MARFA), that would prohibit any “adverse action” by the federal government against any “person” who acts on the basis of a religious belief opposing same-sex marriage or opposing sexual relations outside of opposite-sex marriages. “Adverse actions” […]
“Anti-Christian Pogroms” in Egypt
Nina Shea (National Review Online) reports: The litany of attacks is long: St. George Church, St. Mary’s Church, Good Shepherd’s Church, the Pentecostal Church, in Minya; St. Therese Church, Church of the Reformation, Church of the Apostle, Holy Revival Church, St. John’s Church, in Assiut; Church of the Virgin Mary in Cairo, St. Damiana Church, […]
Third Circuit Denies En Banc Petition in Contraception Mandate Case
This week, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit voted 7-5 to deny a petition for rehearing en banc in a private for-profit employer’s challenge to the federal contraception mandate in Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. HHS. As SCOTUSBlog notes, this creates a circuit split between the Third and Tenth Circuits on […]
Can For-Profit Corporations Have Religious Purposes?
Expanding on Will’s post from Wednesday (and his prior post here), it seems to me the argument that corporations, as such, cannot press religious liberty claims (or, to put it another way, cannot “exercise” religion) is wholly unsustainable. As Will notes, a consequence of this position would be the denial of religious liberty claims made by churches. […]
Do Corporations Have a Right to Sell Kosher Meat?
I’ve seen some skeptical responses to my previous post about corporations and free exercise, of which Dahlia Lithwick’s and David Gans’s are emblematic. My point, recall, was that the Third Circuit’s logic led to the conclusion that churches don’t have free exercise rights, and that even though the Third Circuit said that that didn’t have […]
A Crime to Conduct a Same-Sex or Polygamous Religious Wedding Ceremony in Indiana?
The Becket Fund had an interesting item about this on July 11 (sorry for the delay blogging, but I was out last week and with a poor Internet connection starting Wednesday): There was a recent blogstorm about what was by some billed as a new legislative attempt to criminalize religious — but not civil — […]
Hobby Lobby Wins Before En Banc Tenth Circuit
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, sitting en banc, breathed new life into Hobby Lobby’s religious freedom challenge to the so-called “contraception mandate.” Here is how Judge Tymkovich summarized the court’s holding in the opinion for the court: This case requires us to determine whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Free […]
“Extremism Rises Among Myanmar Buddhists”
The New York Times reports: Ashin Wirathu, a Buddhist monk with a rock-star following in Myanmar, sat before an overflowing crowd of thousands of devotees and launched into a rant against what he called “the enemy” — the country’s Muslim minority. “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to […]
Objectivism Not a Religion for Religious Freedom Restoration Act Purposes
What counts as “religion” for constitutional provisions and for various statutory exemption schemes is a complex and unsettled question; the Supreme Court has said that Secular Humanism qualifies, though lower courts have doubted how broadly this sweeps, and some courts have said the same about the Society for Ethical Culture; the government has also treated […]
Tennessee Child Custody Law Favoring Parents Who Can Best Prepare Child for “a Life of Service”
By Eugene Volokh on May 21, 2013 5:55 pm in Atheism, Child Custody and Constitutional Law, Parental Rights, Religious Freedom
I just ran across the Tennessee statute, Tenn Code Ann. § 36-6-404, that provides the factors that courts are to consider in determining physical custody as between two parents. Many states have such lists of factors, but the bold text seems to me to be unique to Tennessee: (b) … The court shall make residential […]
6 Years + 300 Lashes in Saudi Arabia for Helping Woman Convert to Christianity
Agence France Press reports: A Saudi court jailed a Lebanese man for six years and sentenced him to 300 lashes after convicting him of encouraging a Saudi woman to convert to Christianity, Saudi dailies reported Sunday. The same court sentenced a Saudi man convicted in the same case to two years in prison and 200 […]
“Around the World, Muslims Heralded Religious Freedom”
So reports CNN’s belief blog, as one of the “[f]ive takeaways” from the Pew Research Center’s new survey of Muslims around the world: Despite views that Islam should influence politics and law, an overwhelming number of Muslims told Pew that religious freedom was a good thing. Ninety-seven percent of Muslims in South Asia, 95% in […]