Law Commons^™

Religion And Group Rights: Are Churches (Just) Like The Boy Scouts?, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

What role do religious communities, groups, and associations play - and, what role should they play - in our thinking and conversations about religious freedom and church-state relations? These and related questions - that is, questions about the rights and responsibilities of religious institutions - are timely, difficult, and important. And yet, they are often neglected.

It is not new to observe that American judicial decisions and public conversations about religious freedom tend to focus on matters of individuals' rights, beliefs, consciences, and practices. The special place, role, and freedoms of groups, associations, and institutions are often overlooked. However, if …

Church, State, And The Practice Of Love, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

In his first encyclical letter, Deus caritas est, Pope Benedict XVI describes the Church as a community of love. In this letter, he explores the organized practice love by and through the Church, and the relationship between this practice, on the one hand, and the Church's commitment to the just ordering of the State and society, on the other. God is love, he writes. This paper considers the implications of this fact for the inescapably complicated nexus of church-state relations in our constitutional order.

The specific goal for this paper is to draw from Deus caritas est some insight into …

How Does "Equal Liberty" Fare In Relation To Other Approaches To The Religion Clauses?, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

As one of four contributors to an issue celebrating Christopher Eisgruber and Lawrence Sager's Religious Freedom and the Constitution, I have chosen to write an Essay that differs from an ordinary review. I compare the authors' approach with two other recent formulations of what should be central for the jurisprudence of the Religion Clauses. Since I have recently published my own treatment of the Free Exercise Clause, and a second volume on the Establishment Clause is in the pipeline toward publication, I do not here present my own positive views (though I provide references for interested readers). Those views …

(Not Yet) Taking Rights Seriously: The House Of Lords In Begum V. Headteacher And Governors Of Denbigh High School, Gareth Davies

Human Rights & Human Welfare

© Gareth Davies. All rights reserved.

This paper may be freely circulated in electronic or hard copy provided it is not modified in any way, the rights of the author not infringed, and the paper is not quoted or cited without express permission of the author. The editors cannot guarantee a stable URL for any paper posted here, nor will they be responsible for notifying others if the URL is changed or the paper is taken off the site. Electronic copies of this paper may not be posted on any other website without express permission of the author.

Social Reproduction And Religious Reproduction: A Democratic-Communitarian Analysis Of The Yoder Problem, Josh Chafetz

ExpressO

In 1972, Wisconsin v. Yoder presented the Supreme Court with a sharp clash between the state's interest in social reproduction through education -- that is, society's interest in using the educational system to perpetuate its collective way of life among the next generation -- and the parents' interest in religious reproduction -- that is, their interest in passing their religious beliefs on to their children. This Article will take up the challenge of that clash, a clash which continues to be central to current debates over issues like intelligent design in the classroom. This Article engages with the competing theories …

Play In The Joints Between The Religion Clauses' And Other Supreme Court Catachreses, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

Consistent with its fumbling of late when dealing with cases involving religion, the U.S. Supreme Court has taken to reciting the metaphor of play in the joints between the Religion Clauses. This manner of framing the issue before the Court presumes that the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses run in opposing directions, and indeed will often conflict. It then becomes the Court's task, as it sees it, to determine if the law in question falls safely in the narrows where there is space for legislative action neither compelled by the Free Exercise Clause nor prohibited by the Establishment Clause. The …

The Interests Of "Peoples" In The Cooperative Management Of Sacred Sites, Kristen A. Carpenter

Publications

This essay contends that there is a structural element of federal law and policy that sets up legal battles over American Indian sacred sites. The Supreme Court has held that whatever rights groups may have at sacred sites, the federal government's rights as owner and sovereign of the public lands ultimately prevails. Federal agencies can, if they choose, accommodate various interests on the public lands, but such decisions are left to fluctuating executive policy and the discretion of land managers. This approach reflects well-established doctrine in public lands law, but leaves various citizens and groups clamoring for the federal government …

Cutter And The Preferred Position Of The Free Exercise Clause, Steven Goldberg

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005) allowed Congress to give religious exercise a status superior to that given to free speech. In upholding RLUIPA, a statute protecting inmate religious freedom, the Court explicitly held that statutes can allow prisoners to “assemble for worship, but not for political rallies.” Religion, which lost in Smith (1990) the traditional “preferred position” courts have accorded First Amendment rights, can now regain that position through legislation notwithstanding the Establishment Clause. Indeed, religion has not just regained parity with free speech, it now receives greater protection in the prison setting. This striking …

Roger Williams On Liberty Of Conscience, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Demise Of The First Amendment As A Guarantor Of Religious Freedom, Ivan E. Bodensteiner

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Permissible Scope Of Legal Limitations On The Freedom Of Religion Or Belief In The United States, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

This article summarizes the law of legal limitations on religious freedom in the UnitedStates, including sources and hierarchies of applicable law, structural limitations on religious freedom, grounds for limiting such freedom, an analytical description oflimitations, and background influences on limitations law, and applies this law to hypothetical situations.

Federal judicial decisions interpreting the Religion Clauses are the principal source oflimitations law in the United States. RLUIPA and RFRA, federal anti-discrimination statutes, and executive orders are other important sources of religious freedom law. State constitutions, statutes, and regulations are important sources law when federal sources are absent or inapplicable. International human …

Rites And Rights In Afghanistan: The Hazara And The 2004 Constitution, Justin Desautels-Stein

Publications

No abstract provided.

Religious Monopolies And The Commodification Of Religion, Brett Scharffs, Shima Baradaran, Elizabeth Clark

Elizabeth A. Clark

No abstract provided.

Another Of Roger William's Gifts: Women's Right To Liberty Of Conscience: Joshua Verin V. Providence Plantations, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Religious Freedom And The Undoing Of The Westphalian State, Daniel Philpott

Michigan Journal of International Law

Not so long ago, in 1998, the world acknowledged both the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 350th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia. The Universal Declaration was celebrated in the popular press, by thousands of activists, and at well attended open forums at schools and universities. Westphalia was noted almost exclusively at academic conferences. But public obscurity is an undeserved fate for Westphalia, for its legacy in organizing our political world vies with that of the American and French revolutions. What Westphalia inaugurated was a system of sovereign states where a single authority resided …

Searching For The Soul Of Judicial Decisionmaking: An Empirical Study Of Religious Freedom Decisions, Gregory C. Sisk, Michael Heise, Andrew P. Morriss

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

During the past half century, constitutional theories of religious freedom have been in a state of great controversy, perpetual transformation, and consequent uncertainty. Given the vitality of religious faith for most Americans and the vigor of the enduring debate on the proper role of religious belief and practice in public society, a searching exploration of the influences upon judges in making decisions that uphold or reject claims implicating religious freedom is long overdue. Many thoughtful contributions have been to the debate about whether judges should allow their religious beliefs to surface in the exercise of their judicial role. Yet much …

Splitting Hairs: Why Courts Uphold Prison Grooming Policies And Why They Should Not, Mara R. Schneider

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this Note describes the substance of prison grooming policies and provides a sampling of cases that have challenged these policies under the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses. Part II explores three theories of discrimination that describe certain types of discriminatory conduct that could be prohibited by the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses. These theories inform the definition of "equal protection of the laws" and impact the analysis of equal protection challenges to prison grooming policies. Part III explores the "religious exemptions" doctrine and explains how courts have interpreted the protections offered to religious groups by …

The First Free Exercise Case, Walter J. Walsh

Articles

Part I of this Article tells the colonial history of religious freedom in New York State from a minority perspective, with specific reference to the secrecy of the confessional-the very practice that would be constitutionally tested in Philips. Part II describes the immediate social and political issues raised by the influx of Irish Catholic refugees into New York City in the wake of the failed United Irish Rebellion of 1798. Part III treats the unfriendly 1811 ruling of the federalist Chief Justice James Kent in People v. Ruggles as representative of the dominant Anglocentric constitutional legacy of imperial Protestant …

Torts: Praying For The Parish Or Preying On The Parish? Clergy Sexual Misconduct And The Tort Of Clergy Malpractice, Emily C. Short

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

In The Absence Of Title: Responding To Federal Ownership In Sacred Sites Cases, Kristen A. Carpenter

Publications

This paper examines the challenge of protecting American Indian sacred sites located on federal public lands. Many have addressed this issue in the religious freedoms context, but I believe the problem is just as much about property law. The Supreme Court's decision in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, for example, would appear to suggest that federal ownership of certain sacred sites trumps tribal free exercise clause claims regarding those sites. This holding corresponds with a classic model in which "[p]roperty is about rights over things and the people who have those rights are called owners." However, a …

Book Review: Freedom Of Religion Under The European Convention On Human Rights, S. I. Strong

Faculty Publications

Oxford University Press has initiated a new series on the European Convention on Human Rights and, in light of recent world events, could not have found a more timely first installment than Carolyn Evans's book on freedom of religion. However, the choice of topics is sound even when one sets aside the current interest in the interplay between law and religion.

The Right Questions About School Choice: Education, Religious Freedom, And The Common Good, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

As this Essay goes to press, the Supreme Court is considering whether Ohio's school-choice program violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In my view, the Ohio program is sound public policy, and it is consistent with the Justices' present understanding of the Establishment Clause. I also believe that the Court will and should permit this experiment, and our conversations about its merits, to continue. The purpose of this Essay, though, is not to predict or evaluate ex ante the Court's decision. Instead, my primary aim is to suggest and then sketch a few broad themes that--once the …

Indian Religious Freedom: To Litigate Or Legislate?, Louis Fisher

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Primacy Of Political Actors In Accommodation Of Religion, William K. Kelley

Journal Articles

This article focuses on the relationship between freedom of religion and the norm against non-establishment of religion in the context of government efforts to accommodate religious practices. It analyzes First Amendment doctrine in this area, and concludes that the Supreme Court has consistently been generous in permitting accommodations of religion when they are the product of judicial decisions; in other words, at least until recently the Court has been open to mandatory accommodations so long as they are ordered by judges. By contrast, the Court has long been suspicious of - and far from generous in permitting - accommodations as …

Separation And Schools, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

In commenting on these rich papers by Michel Troper and Michael McConnell, I first analyze the implications of legal and political theory for religious liberty and separation of church and state. I then turn to underlying premises of modern liberal theory about moral education and tolerance among citizens. Lastly, I concentrate on separation as it affects the schooling of children. Despite Professor Troper's emphasis on the uniqueness of French understanding and history, I was struck by how closely French problems about schooling, and their possible resolutions, resemble those in the United States.

Religious Freedom As If Religion Matters: A Tribute To Justice Brennan, Stephen L. Carter

Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture

On April 22, 1998, Professor of Law, Stephen L. Carter of Yale Law School, delivered the Georgetown Law Center’s eighteenth Annual Philip A. Hart Memorial Lecture: "Religion-Centered Free Exercise: A Tribute to Justice Brennan."

Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, where he has taught since 1982. Among his courses are law and religion, the ethics of war, contracts, evidence, and professional responsibility. His most recent book is The Violence of Peace: America’s Wars in the Age of Obama (2011). Among his other books on law and politics are God’s Name in Vain: The …

A Restatement Of The Supreme Court's Law Of Religious Freedom: Coherence, Conflict Or Chaos?, Carl H. Esbeck

Faculty Publications

Religious freedom as guaranteed in the First Amendment makes religious pluralism more likely, while pluralism makes the maintenance of religious freedom as a fundamental civil right more necessary. It seems there is a limit, however, to the expansion of America's religious pluralism that, when exceeded, shatters cultural consensus thus rendering impossible the political and civil discourse necessary to sustain democratic institutions.1 This follows because pluralism promises freedom but exacts a price in civic disunity and moral confusion. The question thereby resolves itself into just how a religiously diverse people are to live together, despite their deepest differences, while sharing in …

The Constitutional Development Of Religious Freedom In Spain: An Historical Analysis, Daniel B. Montserrat

Florida State University Journal of Transnational Law & Policy

Religious freedom has always constituted a problem in Spain. It can be said that over the centuries, there has only existed intolerance and even on several occasions, persecution. Clearly, the times in which respect and peaceful coexistence occurred in Spain among the three principal religions were limited and fleeting. Unfortunately, even Spanish constitutional history is replete with examples of religious intolerance. From the Cddiz Constitution of 1808, liberal in its politics, but tremendously repressive with respect to religion up until the present day, there have been scarcely twentyfive years of "religious freedom." Recalling the period prior to the first constitution, …

Contexts Of The Political Role Of Religion: Civil Society And Culture, David Hollenbach S.J.

San Diego Law Review

This Article argues that we need to frame the question of the relation of religion to public life in a way that goes beyond discussion of the direct impact of religious convictions on policy choices. The Article considers religion's public influences, such as its influence on the multiple communities and institutions of civil society and on the public self-understanding of a society called culture. In considering these influences, the author offers a new perspective on the role of religious belief in the decisions of those who draft legislation, reach judicial decisions, administer the domestic and foreign affairs of the nation, …

The First Americans And The "Free" Exercise Of Religion, Martin C. Loesch

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.