Religion Law Commons^™

Conscientious Objection To Creating Same-Sex Unions: An International Analysis, Bruce Macdougall, Elsje Bonthuys, Kenneth Mck. Norrie, Marjolein Van Den Brink

All Faculty Publications

In jurisdictions that recognize same-sex marriages and unions, the question arises as to the extent to which civic officials who normally preside at such unions can refuse such participation for religious reasons. This paper examines this issue in the context of four jurisdictions: Scotland, Canada, the Netherlands and South Africa. What is striking is how different is the process of reaching a resolution in each jurisdiction, though the actual result might be the same. This difference arises because of the jurisdiction-specific reasons why same-sex marriages and unions are recognized, how they are recognized, the status of the officers who preside …

Front Matters - Vol. 11, No. 1, Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal

Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Intersection Of Laicite And American Secularism: The French Burqa Ban In The Context Of United States Constitutional Law, Mary-Caitlin Ray

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Islam In The Secular Nomos Of The European Court Of Human Rights, Peter G. Danchin

Michigan Journal of International Law

If, with the benefit of hindsight, Mr. Choudhury's case was a harbinger of the emergence of various problems associated with Islam and the rights of Muslim minorities in European nation-states, then the events of September 11, 2001 have propelled these issues to the forefront of law and politics in a way unimaginable even a decade earlier. In Denmark, cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a suicide bomber have been published leading to protests and violence across Europe and the Islamic world; a law prohibiting students in public schools from wearing symbols or attire through which they conspicuously exhibit a …

Referenda And The District Of Columbia's Human Rights Act: Voting On Same-Sex Marriage In The Nation's Capital, Jacob Stewart

Legislation and Policy Brief

Beginning with Massachusetts in 2003, the courts and legislatures of many states have had to decide whether same-sex marriage is or should be a fundamental right under their respective constitutions.  Although only five states and the District of Columbia legally perform same-sex marriages, a few other jurisdictions are in the process of proposing laws moving in that direction.  However, the vast majority of states are holding fast to the traditional heterosexual definition of marriage.  Thirty-eight states have adopted some sort of Defense of Marriage Act, constitutional amendment, or similar measure that defines marriage as the union between one man and …

Hammerin’ Hank & The Golden Arm: Remembering Baseball’S Jewish Hall Of Famers, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

This cover story focuses on two of baseball’s greatest players, Sandy Koufax, and Hank Greenberg. Besides describing their great talent for the game, it also chronicles the religious discrimination, taunts and abuse they had to endure for their religious beliefs, not just from the public, but occasionally from members of opposing teams as well.

Rights, Religion, Regard, Contact: The Common School Ideal, A Nurturing, Safe And Effective Educational Environment For All Students, Scott Ellis Ferrin

Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Goldilocks And The Three-Judge Panel: Spencer V. World Vision, Inc. And The Religious Organization Exemption Of Title Vii, Brandon S. Boulter

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Education As A Counterterrorism Tool And The Curious Case Of The Texas School Book Resolution, Diane Webber

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Noah's Curse: How Religion Often Conflates Status, Belief, And Conduct To Resist Antidiscrimination Norms, William N. Eskridge Jr.

Georgia Law Review

Today, many devout Christian fundamentalists support
some state discrimination against gay people, on the
ground that full equality for gays would mean fewer
liberties for themselves. In its recent controversy with a
public law school, the Christian Legal Society argued that
it was entitled to state subsidies even though it violated
the school's antidiscrimination policy. The Society said it
excluded only "unrepentant homosexuals"-those gay
persons whose "immoral" conduct and degraded status
were directly linked to what the Society considered an
anti-Christian message.
Professor Eskridge demonstrates that the same clash
between equality for minorities and liberty for Christian
fundamentalists played out …

Religion And Race: The Ministerial Exception Reexamined, Ian C. Bartrum

Scholarly Works

This essay is a contribution to the Northwestern University Law Review's colloquy on the ministerial exception, convened following the Supreme Court's decision to hear arguments in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC.

The author takes the opportunity to consider the (sometimes) competing constitutional values of racial equality and religious freedom. The author offers historical, ethical, and doctrinal arguments for the position that race must trump religion as a constitutional value when the two come into conflict. With this in mind, the author suggests that the ministerial exception should not shield religious employers from anti discrimination suits brought on the basis of race.

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.

Defamation Of Religions: A Vague And Overbroad Theory That Threatens Basic Human Rights, Allison G. Belnap

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Fallacy Of Neutrality From Beginning To End: The Battle Between Religious Liberties And Rights Based On Homosexual Conduct, Rena M. Lindevaldsen

Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Bible plainly states that everyone must either "bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" or continue as "enemies in your mind." Un-Biblical thinking, like un-Bibical actions, leads one on a path away from God. Part II of this Article will briefly introduce a Biblical approach to thinking about contemporary issues and discuss how Christians can unwittingly abandon distinctively Biblical thinking under the guise of neutrality. Part III will present a number of cases that highlight the fallacy of neutrality in the battle between religious liberties and rights based on homosexual conduct. Part IV will contend that …

A Miscarriage Of Justice: Pregnancy Discrimination In Sectarian Schools, Lauren E. Fisher

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

In God We Trust: The Judicial Establishment Of American Civil Religion, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 869 (2010), James J. Knicely, John W. Whitehead

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

To Be Muslim Or "Muslim-Looking" In America: A Comparative Exploration Of Racial And Religious Prejudice In The 21st Century, Sheryll Cashin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Essay begins with a confession. In taking implicit association tests ("IATs") designed to measure my unconscious attitude toward two particular demographic groups, I discovered that I, an African-American, harbored a "slight automatic preference" for Europeans over blacks and for "other people" over "Arab-Muslims." Both of these results were contrary to my professed or conscious assertions of neutrality. Why would a pro-integration scholar who seeks to promote cross-racial understanding and inclusion exhibit such implicit biases? And why is it that a majority of others who take these tests register similar implicit biases? The point of my confession is to underscore …

Religion-Based Claims For Impinging On Queer Citizenship, Bruce Macdougall, Donn Short

All Faculty Publications

Competing claims for legal protection based on religion and on sexual orientation have arisen fairly frequently in Canada in the past decade or so. The authors place such competitions into five categories based on the nature of who is making the claim and who is impacted, the site of the competition, and the extent to which the usual legal and constitutional norms applicable are affected. Three of the five categories identified involve a claim that a religion operate in some form in the public area so as to impinge on the usual protection of equality on the basis of sexual …

A Closer Look At Law: Human Rights As Multi-Level Sites Of Struggles Over Multi-Dimensional Equality, Susanne Baer

Articles

In many societies, deep conflicts arise around religious matters, and around equality. Often, religious collectives demand the right to self-determination of issues considered - by them - to be their own, and these demands collide with individual rights to, again, religious freedom. These are thus conflicts of religion v. religion. Then, collective religious freedom tends to become an obligation for all those who are defined as belonging to the collective, which carries the problem that mostly elites define its meaning and they silence dissent. Usually, such obligations are also unequal relating to gender, with different regimes for women and for …

Empowerment Or Estrangement: Liberal Feminism's Visions Of The “Progress” Of Muslim Women, Cyra Akila Choudhury

Faculty Publications

This paper presents some thoughts on the progress of Muslim women towards gender justice. It argues that Liberal Legal feminism shares a common understanding of history and progress with those Liberal political theories that justified the British Empire. Because of this genealogy, Liberal feminism seeks to reform cultures and societies that do not comport with a particular Liberal teleology that forecloses the expression of alternative ideas of history, progress, and human flourishing. It further argues that Muslim women's organizations that partner with Northern organizations sometimes seek to fulfill Liberal expectations of victimhood at the hands of their culture. The consequence …

The Substance Of Substantive Equality: Gender Equality And Turkey's Headscarf Debate, Rachel Rebouche

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

You Can Move In But You Can't Stay: To Protect Occupancy Rights After Halprin, The Fair Housing Act Needs To Be Amended To Prohibit Post-Acquisition Discrimination, 42 J. Marshall L. Rev. 751 (2009), Scott N. Gilbert

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dilemmas Of Cultural Legality: A Comment On Roger Cotterrell's 'The Struggle For Law' And A Criticism Of The House Of Lords' Opinions In Begum, John Mikhail

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In “The Struggle for Law: Some Dilemmas of Cultural Legality,” Professor Roger Cotterrell argues that the law’s most distinctive aspiration is to promote a respectful exchange of ideas among different parts of a multicultural society. He illustrates his thesis with the House of Lords’ decision in Begum, describing it as “a relatively successful contribution to the process by which battlefields of rights are turned into areas of routine structuring” and finding much to admire in the messages communicated by the Lords in this case. I am more troubled by the Lords’ opinions in Begum and less convinced than Cotterrell seems …

The Anabaptist Conscience And Religious Exemption To Jury Service, Michael Hatfield

Articles

While the concern over religiously devout Americans who wish to serve on juries is a serious one, a potential juror dismissed from service over his or her religiosity suffers a real but relatively abstract damage. The punishment is being sent home when they want to stay.

This Article examines a different issue with more severe consequences: religiously devout citizens who risk being jailed for refusing to serve on a jury. Rather than asking whether Jesus could serve on a jury, this Article addresses whether we should force Jesus to serve if he said God told him not to. More specifically, …

If It Is Broken, Then Fix It: Needed Reforms To Employment Discrimination Law: 2009 Annual Meeting Of The Association Of American Law Schools Section On Employment Discrimination Law, Melissa Hart, Minna Kotkin, Roberto Corrada, Deborah Widiss

Publications

No abstract provided.

Dear Colleague Letter From Reps. Emanuel Cleaver And Mark Souder, Emanuel Cleaver, Mark Souder

Briefings, Hearings, and Congressional Study Group

Dear Colleague letter written by members of Congress, Emanuel Cleaver and Mark Souder for the event: Workplace Flexibility and Religion held June 6, 2008.

The Gentleman From Hagerstown: How Maryland Jews Won The Right To Vote, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article discusses the early history of Maryland in the context of religious discrimination, specifically in reference to discrimination against those of the Jewish faith, even though the state "was founded as a haven of religious liberty and beacon of toleration." It also highlights a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, Thomas Kennedy, a Christian, as being the leader of the movement to ultimately correct this injustice. Part of the problem were clauses in the state's constitution requiring officeholders to be Christians. Kennedy lost his seat in the House, but didn't give up the battle. Ha had tried several …

Moral Conflict And Conflicting Liberties, Chai R. Feldblum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The authors' goal in this chapter is to surface some of the commonalities between belief liberty and identity liberty and to offer some public policy suggestions for what to do when these liberties conflict. She first wants to make transparent the conflict that she believes exists between laws intended to protect the liberty of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people so that they may live lives of dignity and integrity and the religious beliefs of some individuals whose conduct is regulated by such laws. The author believes those who advocate for LGBT equality have downplayed the impact of such …

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.