Law Commons^™

Law, Religion, And Politics: Understanding The Separation Of Church And State, Richard Garnett

Faculty Workshops

Professor Richard Garnett, of University of Notre Dame Law School, presented on the topic Law, Religion, and Politics: Understanding the Separation of Church and State. This workshop was presented as part of the Hesburgh Lecture Series through the Alumni & Friends of University of Notre Dame and was co-sponsored by the Notre Dame Alumni Club of Miami. This workshop examined how to understand the Constitution's "separation of church and state" and what it requires of religious believers and institutions.

The Isis Crisis And The Development Of International Humanitarian Law, Johan D. Van Der Vyver

Johan D van der Vyver

ABOUT THE ARTICLE This article identifies the rules of international humanitarian law that have a bearing on the Israeli offensive in Gaza. It first of all attempts to establish whether or not Israel remained an Occupying Power after its disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005. If due to the control Israel continued to exercise over border crossings, electricity and water supplies and the like, Israel is found to be de facto in occupation of Gaza, the Hamas responses would qualify as a war of liberation, which in terms of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 …

A Statute Is Worth A Thousand Words: Same Sex Marriage And Rfra, Daniel Korda

Daniel Korda

This article explores the effectiveness of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a defense for individuals with religious objections towards servicing same sex marriages. Specifically, this article (a) evaluates if the Federal Government has a compelling interest to promote equal accommodations for same sex marriages and (b) considers if "private" individuals suing private parties for refusing to service their marriage are in fact "public" plaintiffs, as the enforcement of laws banning marital discrimination have traditionally been enforced by the State.

The First Amendment Case For Corporate Religious Rights, John D. Moore

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Is It Unconstitutional To Prohibit Faith-Based Schools From Becoming Charter Schools?, Stephen D. Sugarman

Stephen D Sugarman

This article argues that it is unconstitutional for state charter school programs to preclude faith-based schools from obtaining charters. First, the “school choice” movement of the past 50 years is described, situating charter schools in that movement. The current state of play of school choice is documented and the roles of charter schools, private schools (primarily faith-based schools), and public school choice options are elaborated. In this setting I argue a) based on the current state of the law it would not be unconstitutional (under the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause) for states to elect to make faith-based schools eligible for …

Kirsch V. Wisconsin Department Of Corrections: Will The Supreme Court Say "Hands Off" Again?, Owen J. Rarric

Akron Law Review

This Note examines the struggle of prison inmates to gain access to religious materials; materials that have been forbidden by prison officials. Part II of the Note will examine the historical development of inmates’ constitutional rights. It will also analyze the Supreme Court’s standard for reviewing prison regulations involving inmates’ constitutional rights. Moreover, the Note discusses Congress’ attempt to set the standard of review. The Note then examines the significance of the Kirsch decision. Finally, the Note analyzes the fourth factor of the Turner Standard used in Kirsch and explores the possible effect of a new legislative act on prisoners’ …

Religion In The Schools: On Prayer, Neutrality, And Sectarian Perspectives, Mark Strasser

Akron Law Review

About sixty years ago the United States Supreme Court decided Everson v. Board of Education, a case marking the beginning of modern Establishment Clause jurisprudence. Since then, in cases ranging from challenges to programs providing on-site religious education during school hours to challenges of school refusals to permit after-school lectures from a religious perspective, the Court has had several opportunities to clarify the respects in which religious education may be associated with public schools without violating constitutional guarantees. The Court’s analysis of the implicated issues has been remarkably inconsistent, both in tone and in substance. Indeed, the reasoning most recently …

Third-Party Harms, Congressional Statutes Accommodating Religion, And The Establishment Clause, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

Those disappointed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (2014), are actively seeking ways to otherwise limit the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissenting in Hobby Lobby, wrote that when a statute seeks to accommodate a claimant’s religious beliefs or practices there must be no detrimental effect on third parties who do not share those beliefs. Although it is unclear whether Justice Ginsburg was relying on the Establishment Clause as imposing this categorical restraint on the authority of Congress, some commentators argue that her thinking necessarily rests on that clause. …

Latest Surveys And Polls On Bascule Of Religion And Belief In Both The United Kingdom And Iran, Mohamad Ali Ali Yousefkhani Mr

Mohamad Ali Ali Yousefkhani

Numerous surveys indicate that the proportion of individuals who do not hold religious beliefs is steadily increasing. Religions and beliefs are notoriously difficult to measure, as they are not fixed or innate, and therefore any poll should be primarily treated as an indication of beliefs rather than a concrete measure. However, one of the foremost respected measures of religious attitudes is the annual British Social Attitudes Survey, further details of the latest report may be found on NatCen’s website

Free Exercise For Whom? -- Could The Religious Liberty Principle That Catholics Established In Perez V. Sharp Also Protect Same-Sex Couples' Right To Marry?, Eric Alan Isaacson

Eric Alan Isaacson

Recent discussions about the threat that same-sex couples hypothetically pose to the religious freedom of Americans whose religions traditions frown upon same-sex unions have largely overlooked the possibility that same-sex couples might have their own religious-liberty interest in being able to marry. The General Synod of the United Church of Christ brought the issue to the fore with an April 2014 lawsuit challenging North Carolina laws barring same-sex marriages. Authored by a lawyer who represented the California Council of Churches and other religions organizations as amici curiae in recent marriage-equality litigation, this article argues that although marriage is a secular …

Human Rights Practices In The Arab States: The Modern Impact Of Sharī’A Values, James Dudley

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Thoughts On Religious Discrimination From The Cairo Geniza, Nathan B. Oman

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Religion And For-Profit Corporations: A Real Issue Hidden By Flimsy Arguments, Nathan B. Oman

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

George Washington. Elena Kagan, And The Town Of Greece, New York: The First Amendment And Religious Minorities, Kermit V. Lipez

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

God And Guns: The Free Exercise Of Religion Problems Of Regulating Guns In Churches And Other Houses Of Worship, John M.A. Dipippa

Faculty Scholarship

This Article demonstrates that the cases raising religious liberty challenges to state regulation of weapons in houses of worship reveal the persistent problems plaguing religious liberty cases. First, these cases illustrate the difficulties non-mainstream religious claims face. Courts may not understand the religious nature of the claim or they may devalue claims that do not seem “normal” or “reasonable.” This is compounded by how few religious liberty claimants, especially non-mainstream religions, win their cases. Second, the cases are part of the larger debate about how easy it should be to get judicially imposed religious exemptions from general and neutral laws. …

The Original Meaning Of "God": Using The Language Of The Framing Generation To Create A Coherent Establishment Clause Jurisprudence, Michael I. Meyerson

Marquette Law Review

The Supreme Court’s attempt to create a standard for evaluating whether the Establishment Clause is violated by religious governmental speech, such as the public display of the Ten Commandments or the Pledge of Allegiance, is a total failure. The Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence has been termed “convoluted,” “a muddled mess,” and “a polite lie.” Unwilling to either allow all governmental religious speech or ban it entirely, the Court is in need of a coherent standard for distinguishing the permissible from the unconstitutional. Thus far, no Justice has offered such a standard.

A careful reading of the history of the framing …

The Need For A Law Of Church And Market, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

This Essay uses Helfand and Richman’s fine article to raise the question of the law of church and market. In Part I, I argue that the question of religion’s proper relationship to the market is more than simply another aspect of the church-state debates. Rather, it is a topic deserving explicit reflection in its own right. In Part II, I argue that Helfand and Richman demonstrate the danger of creating the law of church and market by accident. Courts and legislators do this when they resolve questions religious commerce poses by applying legal theories developed without any thought for the …

Return To Political Theology, Joshua D. Hawley

Faculty Publications

There was a time when theology was called the "queen of the sciences." From the beginnings of the university in the High Middle Ages through the nineteenth century, theology formed the backbone of liberal instruction at institutions of higher learning. Those days are long past. What remains of theological investigation in most major American universities has been trans- posed into the study of religion and safely sequestered in "religious studies" departments. Few undergraduates today encounter theology as a discipline-and as for law students, well, the idea that theology might have some relevance for the study of law is regarded in …

Religion, School, And Judicial Decision Making: An Empirical Perspective, Michael Heise, Gregory C. Sisk

Michael Heise

We analyze various influences on judicial outcomes favoring religion in cases involving elementary and secondary schools and decided by lower federal courts. A focus on religion in the school context is warranted as the most difficult and penetrating questions about the proper relationship between Church and State have arisen with special frequency, controversy, and fervor in the often-charged atmosphere of education. Schools and the Religion Clauses collide persistently, and litigation frames many of these collisions. Also, the frequency and magnitude of these legal collisions increase as various policy initiatives increasingly seek to leverage private and religious schools in the service …

Rethinking The “Religious-Question” Doctrine, Christopher C. Lund

Pepperdine Law Review

The “religious question” doctrine is a well-known and commonly accepted notion about the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses. The general idea is that, in our system of separated church and state, courts do not decide religious questions. And from this premise, many things flow — including the idea that courts must dismiss otherwise justiciable controversies when they would require courts to resolve religious questions. Yet a vexing thought arises. The religious-question doctrine traditionally comes out of a notion that secular courts cannot resolve metaphysical or theological issues. But when one looks at the cases that courts have been dismissing pursuant to …

Doe V. Elmbrook School District And The Importance Of Refocusing Establishment Clause Jurisprudence, Julie M. Karaba

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Telescoping And Collectivizing Religious Free Exercise Rights, Henry L. Chambers Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

If courts are willing to expand religious liberty so that people may be allowed to choose-on the basis of their own religious beliefs-whether certain laws will apply to non-religious entities they create, those courts should take that step very carefully. This Paper explores the issue and pro- ceeds as follows. Part I discusses three recent Supreme Court cases that il- luminate the telescoping and the collectivization of free exercise rights. Part II considers problems that accompany telescoping and collectivizing free exercise rights. Part III suggests how courts should critically evaluate the telescoping and collectivizing of free exercise rights. This Paper …

The Establishment Clause, State Action, And Town Of Greece, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

The Establishment Clause forbids the government from engaging in the same religious exercise that the law protects when performed by a private party. Thus, an establishment case often turns on whether religious activity is "state action." Too often, however, courts ignore the state action analysis or merge it with the substantive Establishment Clause analysis. This muddles both doctrines and threatens individual religious liberty.

This Article argues that the state action doctrine should account for the government's distribution of private rights. Accordingly, the Constitution applies to the government's distribution of rights, but not to a private party's use of those rights. …

International Legal Experience And The Mormon Theology Of The State, 1945-2012, Nathan B. Oman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sans Foi, Ni Loi. Appearances Of Conjugality And Lawless Love, Régine Tremblay

All Faculty Publications

This chapter deals with paradigm shifts in the legal regulation of adult intimate relationships. It includes the shifts from a unique conjugality to the multiplication of conjugalities, from marriage until death do us part to multiple subsequent unions, and from mimicking marriage by necessity to mimicking marriage by choice. Such changes open the floor for questions about the relevance of regulating adult intimate relationships today, or at the very least, about the compulsion to conceive of this kind of relationship as the cornerstone of Canadian family law. As such, it questions shifts in latent elements of the regulation of conjugality …

When Faith Falls Short: Bankruptcy Decisions Of Churches, Pamela Foohey

Scholarly Works

What does a church do when it is about to go bust? Religious organizations, like any business, can experience financial distress. Leaders could try to solve their churches’ financial problems on their own. Perhaps leaders do not view the problems as addressable with law. Or perhaps they do not think, as a moral or spiritual matter, that they should resort to the legal system, such as bankruptcy, to deal with their churches’ inability to pay its debts. Yet about ninety religious organizations seek to reorganize under the Bankruptcy Code every year. This Article relies on interviews with forty-five of these …

Rethinking Religious Minorities' Political Power, Hillel Y. Levin

Scholarly Works

This Article challenges the assumption that small religious groups enjoy little political power. According to the standard view, courts, because of their countermajoritarian qualities, are indispensable for protecting religious minority groups from oppression by the majority. But this assumption fails to account for the many and varied ways in which the majoritarian branches have chosen to protect and accommodate even unpopular religious minority groups, as well as the courts’ failures to do so.

The Article offers a public choice analysis to account for the surprising majoritarian reality of religious accommodationism. Further, it explores the important implications of this reality for …

An Essay On Christian Constitutionalism: Building In The Divine Style, For The Common Good(S), Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Patrick McKinley Brennan

Theocracy is a matter of growing global concern and therefore of renewed academic interest. This paper answers the following question: "What would a Christian constitution, in a predominantly Christian nation, look like?" The paper was prepared for presentation as the Clark Lecture at Rutgers School of Law (Camden), where papers answering the same question with respect to Jewish and Islamic constitutions and cultures, respectively, were also presented. A Christian constitution would not have as its aim the comparatively anodyne -- and ultimately futile -- business of introducing more "Judeo-Christian values" into the life of the typical nation state. The paper …

Religious Exemptions, Marriage Equality, And The Establishment Of Religion, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The advent of nationwide marriage equality has sparked a robust debate over the extent of religious liberties and the limits of civil rights protections. As public opinion regarding LGBT individuals and the families they form has evolved, religious beliefs that once served as the basis for law and policy have been increasing marginalized. Various efforts have been made to protect religious objectors who continue to believe that marriage is only between one man and one woman. For example, all of the states that had enacted marriage equality legislation included exceptions for clergy and religious organizations to ensure that they would …