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Liberalism And The Distinctiveness Of Religious Belief, Abner S. Greene Jan 2020

Liberalism And The Distinctiveness Of Religious Belief, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

Finding the appropriate sweet spot for religion’s role in the state and how state action may affect the lives of religious people continues to be elusive. Cécile Laborde’s ambitious book Liberalism’s Religion comes down firmly on the side of seeing religion as not distinctive, even in a liberal democracy. To the extent that nonestablishment and free exercise norms should prevail, they should prevail insofar as we can disaggregate religion into components that it shares with nonreligious belief and practice. In this review essay, I advance a position on which Laborde spends little time in her book — religion is distinctive …


Enemy And Ally: Religion In Loving V. Virginia And Beyond, Leora F. Eisenstadt May 2018

Enemy And Ally: Religion In Loving V. Virginia And Beyond, Leora F. Eisenstadt

Fordham Law Review

Throughout the Loving case, religion appeared both overtly and subtly to endorse or lend credibility to the arguments against racial mixing. This use of religion is unsurprising given that supporters of slavery, white supremacy, and segregation have, for decades, turned to religion to justify their ideologies. Although these views are no longer mainstream, they have recently appeared again in arguments against same-sex marriage and gay and transgender rights generally. What is remarkable in the Loving case, however, is an alternate use of religion, not to justify white supremacy and segregation but instead to highlight the irrationality of its supporters’ claims. …


Religious Freedom And (Other) Civil Liberties: Is There A Middle Ground?, Abner S. Greene Jan 2015

Religious Freedom And (Other) Civil Liberties: Is There A Middle Ground?, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

There appears to be an intractable debate between those who favor religious accommodations and those who favor civil liberties such as abortion rights and equality rights for same-sex couples. Many take firm positions of truth about one matter or the other. Here, I sketch a middle ground, continuing my endorsement of a robust normative or value pluralism. I canvass some arguments for this position, while also describing and critiquing some works of intellectual history that seem too wedded to one teleological posture or another. Despite my support for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, I critique the Court’s Hobby Lobby ruling, …


Religion And Theistic Faith: On Koppelman, Leiter, Secular Purpose, And Accomodations, Abner S. Greene Jan 2013

Religion And Theistic Faith: On Koppelman, Leiter, Secular Purpose, And Accomodations, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

What makes religion distinctive, and how does answering that question help us answer questions regarding religious freedom in a liberal democracy? In their books on religion in the United States under our Constitution, Andrew Koppelman (DefendingAmerican Religious Neutrality) and Brian Leiter (Why Tolerate Religion?) offer sharply different answers to this set of questions. This review essay first explores why we might treat religion distinctively, suggesting that in our constitutional order, it makes sense to focus on theism (or any roughly similar analogue) as the hallmark of religious belief and practice. Neither Koppelman nor Leiter focuses on this, in part because …


Witchcraft Accusations And Human Rights: Case Studies From Malawi, Chi Adanna Mgbako, Katherine Glenn Jan 2011

Witchcraft Accusations And Human Rights: Case Studies From Malawi, Chi Adanna Mgbako, Katherine Glenn

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores potential community-based interventions to assist victims of witchcraft accusations, based on forty-five case studies from an experimental mobile legal-aid clinic in Malawi, a country in southeastern Africa where witchcraft accusations are widespread and often irreparably harm those accused. In Malawi, the accused are mainly older women who are often blamed for bewitching young children.


Apparent Consistency Of Religion Clause Doctrine, The The Rehnquist Court And The First Amendment, Abner S. Greene Jan 2006

Apparent Consistency Of Religion Clause Doctrine, The The Rehnquist Court And The First Amendment, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

A hallmark of religion clause scholarship is the complaint that the doctrine is a hopeless muddle. However, the Rehnquist Court brought a considerable amount of consistency-well, apparent consistency- to the doctrine. I say "apparent consistency" because, just as a paradox is only a seeming contradiction, so was the Rehnquist Court's religion clause jurisprudence only seemingly consistent. The doctrine focuses on whether the government singles out religion for special benefit (generally problematic under the Establishment Clause) or for special burden (generally problematic under the Free Exercise Clause). If, on the other hand, the government benefits religion as part of a more …


Religious Lawyering Critique, The Aals Presentations, Bruce A. Green Jan 2005

Religious Lawyering Critique, The Aals Presentations, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

One might think about the relationship between law practice and religion in different ways, depending on how one views either the professional norms or religious belief and observance. Some of the most recent academic literature on "religious lawyering" is premised on a highly critical view of the profession's norms and a claim that religious convictions that bear on the practice of law are incompatible with, and preferable to, aspects of the professional norms. My purpose here is to identify, and raise some questions about, both this critique and this suggestion, and to show how they are in tension with other …


The First Amendment: Churches Seeking Sanctuary For The Sins Of The Fathers, Jeffrey R. Anderson, Mark A. Wendorf, Frances E. Baillon, Brant D. Penney Jan 2004

The First Amendment: Churches Seeking Sanctuary For The Sins Of The Fathers, Jeffrey R. Anderson, Mark A. Wendorf, Frances E. Baillon, Brant D. Penney

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article examines whether the Free Exercise Clause or Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, or the judicial abstention doctrine, shields religious institutions from otherwise cognizable tort claims caused by their agents or employees. It concludes that the Constitution does not provide a religious institution with the right or privilege to operate as a law unto itself -- the institution must comply with the law of civil government. Part I provides a brief introduction and background on the First Amendment. Parts II, III, and IV analyze the Free Exercise Clause, judicial abstention doctrine, and the Establishment Clause, respectively, and how …


Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Meets The Civil Law, Thomas P. Doyle, Stephen C. Rubino Jan 2004

Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse Meets The Civil Law, Thomas P. Doyle, Stephen C. Rubino

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This article examines the sexual abuse scandal that has racked the Roman Catholic Church since 1984, focusing in particular on how the Church's authority structure has responded and how the American civil court system has been used by victims to seek redress. It gives an overview of the Church's legal system, Canon Law, and the way that system and the Church leadership have dealt (or failed to deal) with the problem of sexual abuse. Part II takes a "long look back" to the history of sexual abuse and Canon Law before 1984. Part III details how the Church has dealt …


Advocacy And Compassion In The Jewish Tradition, Daniel B. Sinclair Jan 2003

Advocacy And Compassion In The Jewish Tradition, Daniel B. Sinclair

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This essay surveys the Talmudic sources dealing with the issue of advocacy in Jewish law, and highlights the element of compassion that underlies the permissive approach to advocacy in the Talmudic sources. It outlines post-Talmudic developments with a special emphasis on the way in which the medieval authorities synthesized the views of the two Talmuds on the question of advocacy, and how later halakhists pushed this synthesis to its limits in order to pave the way for the emergence of the rabbinical pleader of modern times. This essay concludes with a brief remark on the link between compassion and advocacy …


The Islamic Viewpoint On New Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Hossam E. Fadel Jan 2002

The Islamic Viewpoint On New Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Hossam E. Fadel

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article gives a brief overview of Islamic views on assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs). Islamic law is applied to ARTs to determine what may be lawful and/or moral and what may be impermissible. The article examines artificial insemination, in vitro fertilization, surrogacy and cloning.


Catholic Teaching And The Law Concerning The New Reproductive Technologies, Helen M. Alvare Jan 2002

Catholic Teaching And The Law Concerning The New Reproductive Technologies, Helen M. Alvare

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article sets forth the fundamental teachings from which the Roman Catholic Chruch derives its positions on New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs). It further demonstrates the application of these teachings to some of the specific medical techniques commonly used in the course of NRTs. The Church's legislative recommendations are then summarized.


Regionalism And The Religion Clauses: The Contribution Of Fisher Ames, Marc Arkin Jan 1999

Regionalism And The Religion Clauses: The Contribution Of Fisher Ames, Marc Arkin

Faculty Scholarship

On August 20, 1789, Massachusetts Federalist Fisher Ames rose to address the House of Representatives in one of his rare contributions to the debate on the Bill of Rights. 1 The day before, sitting as a Committee of the Whole, the House had concluded its brief discussion of the proposed religion amendment to the federal Constitution by agreeing to New Hampshire Representative Samuel Livermore's formula that "Congress shall make no laws touching religion, or infringing the rights of conscience." 2 Now, on the 20th, before the House could formally adopt Livermore's language, Representative Ames proposed a different wording. He moved …


The Political Balance Of The Religion Clauses, Abner S. Greene Jan 1992

The Political Balance Of The Religion Clauses, Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

When the Supreme Court held in Employment Division v. Smith that the Free Exercise Clause does not protect religious practices from otherwise valid laws that incidentally burden those practices, it followed a particular theory of democratic politics. That some laws might unintentionally burden certain religious practices is, said the Court, an "unavoidable consequence of democratic government [that] must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself." The Court was certainly right in one sense: To claim that conscientious objection to an otherwise valid law should exempt one from that law is to claim that …