Religion Law Commons^™

Who Is A Minister? Originalist Deference Expands The Ministerial Exception, Jared C. Huber

Notre Dame Law Review

The ministerial exception is a doctrine born out of the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment that shields many religious institutions’ employment decisions from review. While the ministerial exception does not extend to all employment decisions by, or employees of, religious institutions, it does confer broad—and absolute—protection. While less controversy surrounds whether the Constitution shields religious institutions’ employment decisions to at least some extent, much more debate surrounds the exception’s scope, and perhaps most critically, which employees fall under it. In other words, who is a "minister" for purposes of the ministerial exception?

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 …

The "Nonministerial" Exception, Athanasius G. Sirilla

Notre Dame Law Review

In 2014, Charlotte Catholic High School declined to continue Lonnie Billard’s employment as a substitute drama teacher after he publicly announced, via Facebook, that he and his same-sex partner were getting civilly married. Billard sued the school in the Western District of North Carolina for unlawful employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act due to his sexual orientation. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Billard. The court first held that the high school’s actions could constitute unlawful sex discrimination in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County. The district court …

Revisiting Employment Division V. Smith, Blaine L. Hutchison

University of Cincinnati Law Review

The Supreme Court wrongly decided Employment Division v. Smith. Without briefing or argument over the Free Exercise Clause’s meaning, Smith eliminated the constitutional right to exercise religion and replaced it with an equal protection rule. The decision threatens religious freedom and encourages conflict. The Supreme Court should revisit Smith. This article shows that the majority’s arguments in Smith fail and contradict the Free Exercise Clause’s text, purpose, and original meaning.

The Smith majority gave no sound legal or policy reason for its decision. Indeed, the decision conflicted with settled precedents that no party questioned. Nor did it determine …

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Trinity Lutheran, And Trumpism: Codifying Fiction With Administrative Gaslighting, Robin S. Maril

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This article addresses the Trump administration’s consistent misinterpretation and misapplication of legal precedent to support unnecessary religious exemptions that exceed Constitutional mandates and impair the rights of third parties to access federal services and programs. Proponents of this routinized repeal of civil rights protections argue that the Trump administration is merely restoring the correct balance of religious liberties in the federal government. However, the regulations and policies included in this campaign unconstitutionally broaden the already robust religious protections provided by statutes and court decisions and have the effect of dismantling the civil rights infrastructure of the past 50 years.

Despite …

Establishment Of Religion Supreme Court Appellate Division Third Department

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Legislative Prayer: Historical Tradition And Contemporary Issues, Chad West

Utah Law Review

The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . .”1 There is a great deal of confusion among scholars, lower federal courts, and the Justices of the Supreme Court over appropriate Establishment Clause principles,2 but it is at least clear that the government “may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which establishes a state religion or religious faith, or tends to do so.”3 It has long been settled that state and local legislative bodies may, …

“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 …

Fighting The New Wars Of Religion: The Need For A Tolerant First Amendment, Leslie C. Griffin

Maine Law Review

Religious wars have broken out around the country about the legality of gay marriage, the consequences of gay ordination for property ownership, the funding of faith-based organizations and the placement of crosses and Ten Commandments (but not Seven Aphorisms) on public land. To resolve such impassioned disputes, Americans traditionally look to the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, which state "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Unfortunately, the Court's modern decisions interpreting those clauses have shed more heat than light on the discussion and have provoked ongoing controversy instead of …

To Accommodate Or Not To Accommodate: (When) Should The State Regulate Religion To Protect The Rights Of Children And Third Parties?, Hillel Y. Levin, Allan J. Jacobs, Kavita Shah Arora

Washington and Lee Law Review

When should we accommodate religious practices? When should we demand that religious groups instead conform to social or legal norms? Who should make these decisions, and how? These questions lie at the very heart of our contemporary debates in the field of Law and Religion.

Particularly thorny issues arise where religious practices may impose health-related harm to children within a religious group or to third parties. Unfortunately, legislators, courts, scholars, ethicists, and medical practitioners have not offered a consistent way to analyze such cases, so the law is inconsistent. This Article suggests, first, that the lack of consistency is a …

Master Metaphors And Double-Coding In The Encounters Of Religion And State, Perry Dane

San Diego Law Review

That term “existential encounter” is meant to convey several important ideas. First, it suggests that what is at stake here is not merely a set of legal doctrines or policy prescriptions, but something deeper and more constitutive. The sovereign nation-state, in some sense, looks out at the world around it and sees other entities that do not easily fit into its own internal sovereign architecture. Some of these are other nation-states. Some might be other types of essentially secular, but non-state, human associations. And others are, or should be, communities—large and small, organized or not, united or splintered—whose normative commitment …

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

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "Compulsory School Attendance" Case: Wisconsin V. Yoder, Michael Buchicchio

Akron Law Review

It is an important constitutional doctrine that a law generally constitutional "on its face," may be unconstitutional "as applied" in specific instances. The Amish case marks the first occasion that the Court has clearly articulated that exception in favor of a minority religious group. It would appear that compulsory education laws are-"on their face"--within a state's constitutional powers, but under the facts of this case, the First Amendment requires that the Amish be exempt.

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

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

First Amendment Cases In The October 2004 Term, Joel M. Gora

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

All For One, And One For All-Comers! University Nondiscrimination Policies In Light Of Hosanna-Tabor And The Ministerial Exception, Zach Tafoya

Pepperdine Law Review

In light of the more recent Hosanna-Tabor decision, this Comment seeks to answer these questions by extending the reasoning behind the ministerial exception to the university context in order to build a foundation upon which a future exception can be built to ensure that religious student groups are sufficiently free to choose their own leaders. Part II sets forth a brief history of the ministerial exception and its application in the circuit courts. Part III addresses two recent Supreme Court cases, Martinez and Hosanna-Tabor, and their practical effect on religious liberty, as well as the public’s perception of both cases. …

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 …

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Sharia? Awad V. Ziriax And The Question Of Sharia Law In America, Jeremy Grunert

Pepperdine Law Review

In the 2010 midterm elections, the citizens of Oklahoma passed a ballot initiative barring Oklahoma courts from considering the tenets of Islamic Sharia law in their judicial decisions. This initiative was passed in the midst of a nation-wide debate on the nature of Sharia law, in which numerous states began to take legislative steps to ban or limit the application of Sharia. Oklahoma’s law was the first to explicitly ban Sharia, and it was immediately challenged by a Muslim plaintiff for violating the Constitution’s Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses. This Article examines the resulting case, Awad v. Ziriax, and the …

Neutrality And The Good Of Religious Freedom: An Appreciative Response To Professor Koppelman, Richard W. Garnett

Pepperdine Law Review

This paper is a short response to an address, “And I Don’t Care What It Is: Religious Neutrality in American Law,” delivered by Prof. Andrew Koppelman at a conference, “The Competing Claims of Law and Religion: Who Should Influence Whom?”, which was held at Pepperdine University in February of 2012. In this response, it is suggested – among other things – that “American religious neutrality” is, as Koppelman argues, “coherent and attractive” because and to the extent that it is not neutral with respect to the goal and good of religious freedom. Religious freedom, in the American tradition, is not …

Can We Please Stop Talking About Neutrality? Koppelman Between Scalia And Rawls, Chad Flanders

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

And I Don’T Care What It Is: Religious Neutrality In American Law, Andrew Koppelman

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

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

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reconciling The Irreconcilable: Military Chaplains And The First Amendment, Steven K. Green

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Student Religious Speech Is Speech, John E. Taylor

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Establishment Of Religion, Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department: Robbins V. Bright

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Review Of Building Codes And Zoning Ordinances Applied To Parochial Schools: City Of Sumner V. First Baptist Church, Philip R. Meade

Seattle University Law Review

The First Baptist Church court should not have required strict scrutiny of either the building code or the zoning ordinance applications. In reaching its decision, the court incorrectly analyzed Supreme Court decisions construing the free exercise clause, and drew mistaken parallels between the two Sumner ordinances and laws that the Supreme Court has identified as burdening religious freedom. The court should have distinguished between generally applicable laws such as Sumner's building code and zoning ordinance that, in regulating the peripheral aspects of religious conduct, incidentally make a religious practice less convenient or more expensive, and laws that effectively penalize the …

Manifest Destiny And American Indian Religious Freedom: Sequoyah, Badoni, And The Drowned Gods, Howard Stambor

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religion: The First Amendment And The American Indian Religious Freedom Act Of 1978, Robin K. Rannow

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religion And The Public Schools, P. Raymond Bartholomew

Vanderbilt Law Review

The first amendment to the United States Constitution contains a dual command with respect to governmental involvement with religion: government must "make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Although some have insisted that the first amendment requires a strict separation of church and state, the conclusion is inescapable that the two clauses were intended to operate together in harmony. It is apparent, therefore, that the conflicting policies of the "no establishment" clause and the "free exercise" clause must be balanced and reconciled. The United States Supreme Court has held that this balancing effort …