Religion Law Commons^™

Obergefell, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Fulton, And Public-Private Partnerships: Unleashing V. Harnessing 'Armies Of Compassion' 2.0?, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

Fulton v. City of Philadelphia presented a by-now familiar constitutional claim: recognizing civil marriage equality—the right of persons to marry regardless of gender—inevitably and sharply conflicts with the religious liberty of persons and religious institutions who sincerely believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. While the Supreme Court’s 9-0 unanimous judgment in favor of Catholic Social Services (CSS) surprised Court-watchers, Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion did not signal consensus on the Court over how best to resolve the evident conflicts raised by the contract between CSS and the City of Philadelphia. This article argues that it …

Lgbt Discrimination As Religious Discrimination: Ruse Or Resolution?, Craig Westergard

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

All Faiths & None: A Guide To Protecting Religious Liberty For Everyone, Elizabeth Reiner Platt, Katherine M. Franke, Keisha E. Mckenzie, Katharine Rhodes Henderson

Faculty Scholarship

Religious liberty rights have been immeasurably damaged over the past several years — often in the name of protecting religious liberty.

Government officials have embraced Islamophobic policies and rhetoric; shut the door on refugees fleeing religious persecution; elevated the religious rights of their political allies over the rights — religious and otherwise — of other communities; used religion as a tool of economic deregulation; and denigrated the beliefs of religious minorities, atheists, and religious progressives.

To achieve true freedom for those of all faiths and none, a complete overhaul of religious liberty policy, and a new understanding of what this …

Now, I'M Liberal, But To A Degree: An Essay On Debating Religious Liberty And Discrimination, Francis J. Beckwith

Cleveland State Law Review

This essay is a critical analysis of the book authored by John Corvino, Sherif Girgis, and Ryan T. Anderson, Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination. The book offers two contrary views on how best to think about some of the conflicts that have arisen over religious liberty and anti-discrimination laws, e.g., Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n, 138 S. Ct. 1719 (2018). One position is defended by Corvino, and the other by Girgis and Anderson. After a brief discussion of the differing views of religious liberty throughout American history (including the American founding), this essay summarizes each …

Religion, Discrimination, And Government Funding: Enforcing Civil Rights Law After Masterpiece Cakeshop And Trinity Lutheran, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

A memorandum published by the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School (formerly the Public Rights/Private Conscience Project) that clarifies the responsibility of state and local human rights agencies and commissions to robustly enforce civil rights laws — particularly in the context of government-funded social services — in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission and Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer

New Report Details Consequences Of Trump Administration’S Overly Broad Guidance On Religious Liberty, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project, Center For American Progress

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

April 3, 2018, Washington, D.C. – Obama-era rules prohibiting discrimination in dozens of federal programs could be undermined by the Trump administration’s controversial guidance on religious liberty, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress and Columbia Law School’s Public Rights/Private Conscience Project.

Comment On U.S. Department Of Health And Human Services Rule, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

In medical facilities across the country, doctors whose conscience would require them to perform a sterilization on a patient who requests one, offer truthful information about accessing abortion services, or provide comprehensive LGBTQ+ health care are forbidden from doing so by their employer. The conscience of such medical providers is entirely ignored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s (HHS) recently proposed rule that purports to “ensure that persons or entities” providing health care “are not subjected to certain practices or policies that violate conscience, coerce, or discriminate.” As explained in a comment submitted today by the Columbia …

Religious Liberty For A Select Few, Sharita Gruberg, Frank J. Bewkes, Elizabeth Reiner Platt, Katherine M. Franke, Claire Markham

Faculty Scholarship

This report discusses how the Department of Justice’s guidance opens the door to an extreme rewriting of the concept of religious liberty. The guidance — and the numerous agency rules, enforcement actions, and policies that it is influencing — will shift the balance of individual religious protections across the federal government toward a new framing that allows religious beliefs to be used as a weapon against minority groups.

Columbia Law Experts Denounce Doj Religious Liberty Guidance As Attack On Religious Liberty And Fundamental Equality Rights, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

Columbia Law School’s Public Rights/Private Conscience Project (PRPCP) denounces the memorandum released today by the Department of Justice (DOJ) entitled the “Federal Memorandum for Religious Liberty Protections.” This document, and its implementation guidance misinterpret the meaning and scope of religious liberty under the Constitution and the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), demonstrating this administration’s continued commitment to elevating a particular set of religious beliefs over the safety and equality rights of women, LGBTQ people, people of color, and religious minorities.

Joint Statement By The Council On American-Islamic Relations Of New York & Columbia Law School’S Public Rights/Private Conscience Project, Council On American-Islamic Relations Of New York, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

As advocates for free exercise of religion, civil rights, and religious pluralism, we are deeply concerned that President Trump’s recently signed Executive Order “Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty” will serve to limit, not protect, religious freedom. The order was signed on May 4, 2017, in a ceremony that included Christian musician Steven Curtis Chapman and statements by Pentecostal televangelist Paula White, Baptist Pastor Jack Graham, Catholic Archbishop Donald Wuerl, Rabbi Marvin Heir, and Vice President Mike Pence. While the executive order — unlike a prior leaked draft — does not single out particular religious beliefs for special protection, we …

Five Key Questions To Ask About The New Executive Order On Religious Liberty, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

In February, a draft of an Executive Order (EO) on religious liberty was leaked from the Trump Administration. This order would have had sweeping effects on the enforcement of federal law by all government agencies. In addition to harming LGBTQ communities, it would have had ramifications for unmarried pregnant and parenting women, patients seeking contraceptive care, religious minorities, cohabitating adults and others. President Trump is expected to sign an updated draft of the EO this week. The Public Rights/Private Conscience Project (PRPCP) has outlined five questions to ask when analyzing and reporting on the new order.

Columbia Law School Think Tank Submits Amicus Brief In Transgender Rights Case, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

April 25, 2017 – Columbia Law School’s Public Rights/Private Conscience Project (PRPCP) and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP filed an amicus brief yesterday with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in a case that raises the important question of whether employers can use religious liberty arguments to avoid compliance with federal non-discrimination laws. Specifically, it considers whether employers have the right to engage in sex discrimination if motivated by religious principles. The case, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc., was brought on behalf of Aimee Stephens, a funeral home director who was fired …

Unmarried And Unprotected: How Religious Liberty Bills Harm Pregnant People, Families, And Communities Of Color, Public Rights/Private Conscience Project

Center for Gender & Sexuality Law

Increasingly, the long-standing national commitment to equality is being undermined by competing claims to religious liberty. Advocates, politicians, and the media have all documented the “wave of religious-freedom bills” introduced in recent years, “almost all inspired by objections to homosexuality and same-sex marriage.” In the 2015-2016 legislative session, dozens of bills were introduced at the state and federal levels that would have created exemptions to otherwise generally applicable laws, including antidiscrimination protections, for persons whose sincerely held religious beliefs conflict with those laws. The most extreme version of these bills would allow religious objectors to engage in a wide range …

A Free Speech Response To The Gay Rights/Religious Liberty Conflict, Andrew Koppelman

Northwestern University Law Review

The most sensible reconciliation of the tension between religious liberty and public accommodations law, in the recent cases involving merchants with religious objections to same-sex marriage, would permit business owners to present their views to the world, but forbid them either to threaten to discriminate or to treat any individual customer worse than others. Even if such businesses have no statutory right to refuse to facilitate ceremonies they regard as immoral, they are unlikely to be asked to participate in those ceremonies. This solution may, however, be forbidden by the law of hostile environment harassment. That raises a severe free …

Rfras And Reasonableness, Steve Sanders

Indiana Law Journal

The organized opponents of legal and social equality for gays and lesbians, particularly the foes of marriage for same-sex couples, have coalesced in recent years around the rallying cry of "religious liberty." In 2015, the conflict between LGBT rights and religious liberty intensified as legislators in seventeen states considered adopting Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs). Most of the national attention focused on Indiana, where legislators adopted a RFRA under pressure from religious conservatives, only to later amend it under pressure from business and civic leaders over concerns that the law sent a message endorsing anti-gay discrimination.

RFRAs, which typically require …

Gay Rights Versus Religious Freedom, And The Influence Of Obergefell V. Hodges On Distinguishing The Dividing Line, Kathleen Rainey Mcstravick

St. Mary's Law Journal

Obergefell v. Hodges, a United States Supreme Court case, added more fuel to the fire, leaving many to wonder how to voice religious opposition to same-sex marriages, and what are the second order effects for religious opposition in light of the new rule. The Court held the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution guarantees protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Obergefell, brings the conflict between freedom of religion and LGBT rights to a new level by questioning how far freedom of religion can be used to refuse anti-discrimination statutes regarding sexual …

Religious Accommodations And – And Among – Civil Rights: Separation, Toleration, And Accommodation, Richard W. Garnett

Richard W Garnett

This paper expands on a presentation at a recent conference, held at Harvard Law School, on the topic of “Religious Accommodations in the Age of Civil Rights.” In it, I emphasize that the right to religious freedom is a basic civil right, the increased appreciation of which is said to characterize our “age.” Accordingly, I push back against scholars’ and commentators’ increasing tendency to regard and present religious accommodations and exemptions as obstacles to the civil-rights enterprise and ask instead if our religious-accommodation practices are all that they should be. Are accommodations and exemptions being extended prudently but generously, in …

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 …

Religious Accommodations And – And Among – Civil Rights: Separation, Toleration, And Accommodation, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

This paper expands on a presentation at a recent conference, held at Harvard Law School, on the topic of “Religious Accommodations in the Age of Civil Rights.” In it, I emphasize that the right to religious freedom is a basic civil right, the increased appreciation of which is said to characterize our “age.” Accordingly, I push back against scholars’ and commentators’ increasing tendency to regard and present religious accommodations and exemptions as obstacles to the civil-rights enterprise and ask instead if our religious-accommodation practices are all that they should be. Are accommodations and exemptions being extended prudently but generously, in …

"Rfra Exemptions From The Contraception Mandate: An Unconstitutional Accommodation Of Religion", Frederick Mark Gedicks, Rebecca G. Van Tassell

Frederick Mark Gedicks

Litigation surrounding use of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to exempt employers from the Affordable Care Act’s “contraception mandate” is moving steadily towards eventual resolution in the U.S. Supreme Court. Both opponents and supporters of the mandate, however, have overlooked Establishment Clause limits on such exemptions. The fiery religious-liberty rhetoric surrounding the mandate has obscured that RFRA is a “permissive” rather than “mandatory” accommodation of religion—that is, a voluntary government concession to religious belief and practice that is not required by the Free Exercise Clause. Permissive accommodations must satisfy Establishment Clause constraints, notably the requirement that the accommodation not impose …

Are Same-Sex Marriages Really A Threat To Religious Liberty?, Eric Alan Isaacson

Eric Alan Isaacson

Some have contended that same-sex couples' marriages pose a grave danger to the religious liberty of social conservatives whose faith traditions do not bless same-sex unions. Those who oppose recognizing same-sex couples' right to marry have even contended that their clergy and churches might be subject to hate-crime prosecutions and loss of tax-exempt status if same-sex couples may lawfully marriage. This article seeks to answer those objections, pointing out that many limitations on religious marriages -- such as Roman Catholic doctrine barring remarriage by those who are civilly divorced -- parallel religious rules similarly limiting or withholding recognition from same-sex …

Finding A Voice Of Challenge: The State Responds To Religious Women And Their Communities, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

The appropriate response of Western nation-states to the situation of religious women who are caught between democratic norms of gender equality and the demands of their religious community has been a source of tension in many Western nations, including the U.S. This article attempts to give voice to the complex nature of women’s religious conduct as tied to their identities, and to propose alternative ways that the state might further its norms of gender equality besides intrusive regulation of religious communities.

The Equal Protection Of Free Exercise: Two Approaches And Their History, Bernadette Meyler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Contrary to critics of the Supreme Court's current equal protection approach to religious liberty, this Article contends that, from the very first federal free exercise cases, the Equal Protection and Free Exercise Clauses have been mutually intertwined. The seeds of an equal protection analysis of free exercise were, indeed, planted even before the Fourteenth Amendment within the constitutional jurisprudence of the several states. Furthermore, this Article argues, equal protection approaches should not be uniformly disparaged. Rather, the drawbacks that commentators have observed result largely from the Supreme Court's application of an inadequate version of equal protection. By ignoring the lessons …

Incitement In The Mosques: Testing The Limits Of Free Speech And Religious Liberty, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

In times of terror and tension, civil liberties are at their greatest peril. Nowadays, no individual rights are more in jeopardy than the freedoms of speech and religion. This is true particularly for followers of Islam, whose leaders have become increasingly radical in both their preaching and practice. "Kill the Jews!" and "Kill the Americans!" are chants heard regularly in many Middle Eastern mosques, as frightful echoes of the fatwa are issued by today's quintessential terrorist, Osama bin Laden. The incitement continues unabated to this day. In April of 2004, for example, a Muslim preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in …

Passage Of Religious Freedom Act Necessary To Fulfill Maryland's National Leadership Role, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

Three hundred sixty-four years ago this month, two tiny sailing ships arrived near what is now St. Mary's City with the first settlers in Maryland. The Ark and the Dove were sent to the New World by Cecil Calvert. Lord Baltimore had founded his small colony as a haven for those persecuted in England because of their religious beliefs.

On numerous occasions since then - from passage of the Act of Toleration in 1649 to the achievement of full civil liberties for Jews in 1825 to landmark Supreme Court decisions involving the state in the 1960s - Maryland has been …