Law Commons^™

Shots Fired, Shots Refused: Scientific, Ethical & Legal Challenges Surrounding The U.S. Military's Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate, Shawn Mckelvy, L. William Uhl, Armand Balboni

St. Mary's Law Journal

The COVID-19 pandemic provided uncertain and challenging circumstances under which to lead a nation and the military that protects it. Those in charge and in command faced unique challenges—scientific, ethical, and legal—at our various levels of government to both keep people safe while keeping government and society functioning. While there were many successes to celebrate, there are also many criticisms for how this “whole-of-government approach” may have degraded some of our most cherished liberties along the way. The authors focus on the U.S. military’s vaccine mandate and propose military leaders may have failed to fully consider the evolving science, weigh …

Separation Of Church And Law: The Ministerial Exception In Demkovich V. St. Andrew The Apostle Parish, Jonathan Murray

University of Colorado Law Review

Religious freedom is increasingly invoked to defeat liability for behavior that has long been regulated under accepted, neutral law, an argument to which many courts and judges appear receptive. One such area of law seeing this activity is the ministerial exception-a judicial principle recognized under the First Amendment. The ministerial exception guarantees religious organizations' discretion in how they select their "ministers,"or religious employees dedicated to the organization's religious mission. However, current law lacks clarity regarding the application of the exception to an organization's treatment of its ministers. Recently, the Seventh Circuit, sitting en banc, chose to categorically expand the application …

Equal, But Only Conceptually: Explaining The Phenomenon Of Religious Losses In Contemporary Canadian Constitutional Cases Involving Conflicting Rights, Mike Madden

Dalhousie Law Journal

If there is no hierarchy of rights in Canada, then why does freedom of religion so often seem to lose in cases of conflicts with other rights? This article discusses five recent Canadian cases (involving same-sex marriages, controversial medical practices, the wearing of a niqab, and a Christian university’s sexual conduct policy) in order to expose how the courts regularly characterize freedom of religion as being conceptually equal to other rights, before ruling against freedom of religion on the facts of the particular cases. This phenomenon within Canadian rights jurisprudence is then justified within the article by reference to a …

No Aid, No Agency, Steven K. Green

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Over the past three decades, members of the Supreme Court have demonstrated increasing hostility to the Establishment Clause’s rule against funding religion, first enunciated in 1947. Over the years, the Court has not only narrowed the rule to allow for government aid to flow to religious schools and faith-based charities, it has more recently declared that to enforce that rule may amount to discrimination against religion. This Article argues that a key reason for the decline in the no-aid principle rests on the weakness of the rationale underlying that rule: that funding of religion coerces the conscience of taxpayers. The …

Faith And/In Medicine: Religious And Conscientious Objections To Maid, Daphne Gilbert

Dalhousie Law Journal

Across Canada, health care institutions that operate under the umbrella of religious traditions refuse to offer medical assistance in dying (MAiD) on the grounds that it violates their Charter-protected rights to freedom of religion and conscience. This article analyses the Supreme Court jurisprudence on section 2(a) and concludes that it should not extend to the protection of institutional rights. While the Court has not definitively pronounced a view on this matter, its jurisprudence suggests that any institutional right to freedom of religion would not extend to decisions on publicly-funded and legal health care. MAiD is a constitutionally-protected option for individuals …

The Deliberative-Privacy Principle: Abortion, Free Speech, And Religious Freedom, B. Jessie Hill

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Conscience Of The Baker: Religion And Compelled Speech, Ashutosh Bhagwat

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Panel 3: Free Speech And Freedom Of Religion

Georgia State University Law Review

Moderator: Eric Segall

Panelists: Mike Dorf and Eugene Volokh

Religious Freedom Through Market Freedom: The Sherman Act And The Marketplace For Religion, Barak D. Richman

William & Mary Law Review

In prior work, I examined certain restraints by private religious organizations and concluded that the First Amendment did not immunize these organizations from antitrust liability. In short, the First Amendment did not preempt enforcing the Sherman Act against certain religious monopolies or cartels.

This Article offers a stronger argument: First Amendment values demand antitrust enforcement. Because American religious freedoms, enshrined in the Constitution and reflected in American history, are quintessentially exercised when decentralized communities create their own religious expression, the First Amendment’s religion clauses are best exemplified by a proverbial marketplace for religions. Any effort to stifle a market organization …

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act At 25: A Quantitative Analysis Of The Interpretive Case Law, Lucien J. Dhooge

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Five Justices Have Transformed The First Amendment’S Freedom Of Religion To Freedom From Religion, Gerald Walpin

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Primer On Hobby Lobby: For-Profit Corporate Entities’ Challenge To The Hhs Mandate, Free Exercise Rights, Rfra’S Scope, And The Nondelegation Doctrine, Terri R. Day, Leticia M. Diaz, Danielle Weatherby

Pepperdine Law Review

Earlier this term, the United States Supreme Court heard oral argument in the consolidated case of Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, the first of a litany of cases in which for-profit business entities are invoking the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA") in support of their claim that the Affordable Care Act’s HHS Mandate violates their freedom of religion. In particular, these plaintiffs argue that the Mandate’s requirement that employer-provided health insurance covers the costs of contraceptives, the "morning after" pill, and other fertility-related drugs conflicts with their deeply-held religious belief that life begins at conception and is, therefore, unconstitutional. …

Free Exercise After The Arab Spring: Protecting Egypt’S Religious Minorities Under The Country’S New Constitution, James Michael Nossett

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Kiss The Book...You're President...: "So Help Me God" And Kissing The Book In The Presidential Oath Of Office, Frederick B. Jonassen

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

First Amendment Freedom Of Speech And Religion - October 2009 Term, Burt Neuborne, Michael C. Dorf

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Religious Liberty Of Judges, Daniel R. Suhr

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article begins by reviewing the government employee line of cases, starting with United Public Workers v. Mitchell in 1947.29 The first section concludes that the modified Pickering balancing test set forth in United States v. National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) is the appropriate level of scrutiny for judicial conduct rules. The body of this Article reviews ways in which the four canons of the ABA Model Code of Judicial Ethics and official interpretations of and rulings regarding them limit the religious activities of judges. I conclude that numerous applications of the Model Code are unconstitutional infringements on judges’ First …

The Fading Free Exercise Clause, Rene Reyes

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article uses the Supreme Court’s recent opinion in Christian Legal Society
v. Martinez as a point of departure for analyzing the current state of free exercise doctrine. I argue that one of the most notable features of the Christian Legal Society (CLS) case is its almost total lack of engagement with the Free Exercise Clause. For the core of CLS’s complaint was unambiguously about the declaration and exercise of religious beliefs: the group claimed that it was being excluded from campus life because it required its members to live according to shared religious principles and to subscribe to a …

Government Identity Speech And Religion: Establishment Clause Limits After Summum, Mary Jean Dolan

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article offers in-depth analysis of the opinions in Pleasant Grove v. Summum. Summum is a significant case because it expands “government speech” to cover broad, thematic government identity messages in the form of donated monuments, including the much-litigated Fraternal Order of Eagles-donated Ten Commandments. The Article explores the fine distinctions between the new “government speech doctrine”— a defense in Free Speech Clause cases that allows government to express its own viewpoint and to reject alternative views—and “government speech” analyzed under the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government from expressing a viewpoint on religion, and from favoring some religions over others. …

Fundamentalism, The First Amendment, And The Rise Of The Religious Right, Randall Balmer

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The "Licentiousness" In Religious Organizations And Why It Is Not Protected Under Religious Liberty Constitutional Provisions, Marci A. Hamilton

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Fundamentalist Challenges To Core Democratic Values: Exit And Homeschooling, Catherine J. Ross

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction: Perspectives On Religious Fundamentalism And Families In The U.S., Vivian E. Hamilton

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

God Of Our Fathers, Gods For Ourselves: Fundamentalism And Postmodern Belief, Frederick Mark Gedicks

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Separationism To The Extreme: The Mt. Soledad Cross And The Ninth Circuit's Crusade To Burden The Free Exercise Clause, Cameron M. Rountree

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Possession Is Nine Tenths Of The Law: But Who Really Owns A Church's Property In The Wake Of A Religious Split Within A Hierarchical Church?, Meghaan Cecilia Mcelroy

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Freedom To Err: The Idea Of Natural Selection In Politics, Schools, And Courts, Paul D. Carrington

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Continuing Threshold Test For Free Exercise Claims, Andy G. Olree

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

When a claimant challenges some governmental law or action under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, courts have long required the claimant to make out a prima facie case that the government has burdened the exercise of the claimant's sincerely held religious beliefs. This requirement has been referred to as the threshold test for free exercise claims, since claimants must make this showing as a threshold matter before courts will proceed to evaluate the burden and the governmental interest at stake under some standard of scrutiny. This Article argues that although the Supreme Court of the United States …

Religion At A Public University, Gerard V. Bradley

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Church And State Should Be Separate, Erwin Chemerinsky

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Cross At College: Accomodation And Acknowledgment Of Religion At Public Universities, Ira C. Lupu, Robert W. Tuttle

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.