Religion Law Commons^™

Protecting "Sincerely Held Religious Beliefs": Lessons From Mississippi Hb 1523, Lindsay Krout Roberts

Mississippi College Law Review

The United States Supreme Court's revolutionary ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which guaranteed marriage equality for homosexual couples in every state, gave life to a new challenge in the area of free exercise of religion: to what extent should persons with religious objections to same-sex marriages be forced to participate in them? Should a Christian baker be legally required to bake a wedding cake for a homosexual marriage to which he or she objects? Must a county clerk with religious objections to homosexual marriage sign a marriage license for a same-sex couple?

In an attempt to pre-empt these types of …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Legal Scholars In Support Of Equality In Support Of Respondents, Fulton V. City Of Philadelpha, Kyle Velte, David Cruz, Michael Higdon, Anthony Michael Kreis, Shirley Lin, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This Brief of Amici Curiae Legal Scholars in Support of Equality in Support of Respondents filed in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia addresses the propriety of an analogy to race discrimination in public accommodation cases involving sexual orientation discrimination. The race analogy in sexual orientation cases proceeds as follows: Advocates and judges widely agree that courts should, and would, reject a religious exemption claim by a public accommodation—such a foster care agency—seeking to turn away an African-American or interracial couple based on the public accommodation’s religious beliefs that Blacks are inferior to whites or that the races should not mix. …

Establishment Of Religion Supreme Court Appellate Division Third Department

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Frankly Unthinkable”: The Constitutional Failings Of President Trump’S Proposed Muslim Registry, A. Reid Monroe-Sheridan

Maine Law Review

On several occasions during the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump endorsed the creation of a mandatory government registry for Muslims in the United States— not just visitors from abroad, but American citizens as well. This astonishing proposal has received little attention in legal scholarship to date, even though Trump has refused to renounce the idea following his election to the presidency. In this Article, I attempt to address President Trump’ s proposal in several ways. First, I aim to provide a thorough analysis demonstrating unequivocally that such a “ Muslim registry,” with the characteristics President Trump has endorsed, would violate …

Disaggregating Corpus Christi: The Illiberal Implications Of Hobby Lobby's Right To Free Exercise, Katharine Jackson

Katharine Jackson

This paper first examines and critiques the group rights to religious exercise derived from the three ontologies of the corporation suggested by different legal conceptions of corporate personhood often invoked by Courts. Finding the implicated groups rights inimical to individual religious freedom, the paper then presents an argument as to why a discourse of intra-corporate toleration and voluntariness does a better job at protecting religious liberty.

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

John M. A. DiPippa

The 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 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. Uncritically …

The First Amendment: Religious Freedom For All, Including Muslims, Asma Uddin

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Defining The Lifeblood: The Search For A Sensible Ministerial Exception Test, Summer E. Allen

Pepperdine Law Review

Over the past 40 years, the circuit courts have acknowledged a ministerial exception to Title VII and other anti-discrimination laws that gives churches the freedom to determine who serves in ministerial roles as a voice of a church’s faith. In January of 2012, the Supreme Court officially adopted the exception into its jurisprudence. The opinion, however, left many questions unanswered. Mainly, the decision failed to give any guidance to lower courts regarding who is and who is not a minister. This article traces the history of the ministerial exception and the church autonomy doctrine back to the Religion Clauses in …

Denominations And Denominators: Applying Lucas V South Carolina Coastal Council To Resolve Rluipa "Substantial Burden On Religious Land Use" Cases, Elliott Joh

Elliott Joh

The free exercise of religion is a well-protected aspect of American life. Freedom of speech is sometimes curtailed during wartime, and the exclusionary rule prompts hostility when used in conjunction with the Fourth Amendment, but it is rare to hear anyone argue that the freedom of worship should be so abrogated. Discrimination on the basis of religion, however, is not so uncommon, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (“RLUIPA”) was enacted to combat such discrimination by municipalities and local zoning authorities. Congress’s hope in enacting this legislation was that churches, mosques, and synagogues have a …

Public School Students' Religious Speech And Viewpoint Discrimination, Kristi L. Bowman

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Student Religious Speech Is Speech, John E. Taylor

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Traditional Values, Or A New Tradition Of Prejudice? The Boy Scouts Of America Vs. The Unitarian Universalist Association Of Congregations, Eric Alan Isaacson

ExpressO

President William Howard Taft, a Unitarian leader whose liberal faith had been viciously attacked by religious conservatives in the 1908 presidential campaign, used the White House as a platform in 1911 to launch a new nonsectarian organization for youth: The Boy Scouts of America (“BSA”). Lately, however, the BSA itself has come under the control of religious conservatives – who in 1992 banned Taft’s denomination from the BSA’s Religious Relationships Committee, and in 1998 threw Taft’s denomination out of its Religious Emblems Program. The denomination’s offense: A tradition of teaching its children that institutionalized discrimination is wrong. Unitarian Universalist religious …

Fight Muhammad's 'Secret' With Facts, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.