Religion Law Commons^™

Status, Conduct, Belief, And Message: The Wedding Vendor Cases, Mark L. Movsesian

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Catholic Institutions And The Religion Clauses: Faith In A Liberal Democracy, Angela C. Carmella

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can First Amendment "History And Tradition" Protect Both Sides In Polarized America?, Thomas C. Berg

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

"Simple Accommodation": A Solution For Conflicts Between Religious Claims And Secular Law?, Laura S. Underkuffler

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Ten Commandments In Louisiana Public Schools: A Study In The Survival Of Establishment Norms, Ira C. Lupu, Robert W. Tuttle

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religious Liberty And The Constitution, Steven J. Heyman

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Symposium — In Search Of Common Ground: Religion And Secularism In A Liberal Democratic Society, Kathleen A. Brady, Steven J. Heyman

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

History, Tradition, And Finding Common Ground: The Establishment Clause And Religious Expression By The State, Kathleen A. Brady

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Jurisdictional Diversity, Tradition, And The Religion Clauses, Steven D. Smith

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Attempting To Protect The Liberty And Equality Of Minority Faiths And Nonreligious Individuals When The Surpreme Court Will Not Do So, Alan Brownstein

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court's Gay Rights-Religious Liberty Contortions, Andrew Koppelman

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Right Not To Work: Unions And Title Vii, Seth C. Oranburg

Law Faculty Scholarship

This article explores how Title VII's mandate for religious accommodation conflicts with union seniority rights, as revealed in Groff v. DeJoy. It argues that labor unions often oppose Sabbath accommodations not out of hostility to religion, but to protect bargained-for entitlements. The piece highlights a growing legal tension: whether co-worker burdens count as “undue hardship” under Title VII—a question with major implications for religious liberty in unionized workplaces.

What We Pretend To Be: Codifying A Right To A Religious Advisor In The Execution Chamber, Claire R. Jenkins

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Over the last fifty years, the Supreme Court has moved the pendulum both toward religious accommodation and away from it. After a decade of oscillating Court decisions, multiple attempts at corrective action by Congress, and widespread social activism, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person’s Act, or RLUIPA, was passed in 2000. RLUIPA was designed to fortify the rights of incarcerated persons and provide clarification to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. As of 2024, the Supreme Court has granted certiorari in only a few RLUIPA cases—and has decided even less about the application of the law to death row inmates. …

Mother Of Exiles: Hospitality & Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Ana M. Rodriguez

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This article examines the historical pattern of denying immigration in the U.S. on moral and supposedly Christian grounds. Although it is reasonable that no nation is duty-bound to welcome every foreigner and provide the same benefits afforded those with full citizenship, this article contends that a genuinely Christian response demands the biblical core value of hospitality to others. Indeed, xenophobia is the antithesis of hospitality and cannot be supported by a faithful, exegetical interpretation of the Christian Bible. It should be noted that this article does not propose the emergence of an American theocracy; however, hospitality-based dialogue and humanitarian principles …

The Legal Origins Of Catholic Conscientious Objection, Jeremy Kessler

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article traces the origins of Catholic conscientious objection as a theory and practice of American constitutionalism. It argues that Catholic conscientious objection emerged during the 1960s from a confluence of left-wing and right-wing Catholic efforts to participate in American democratic culture more fully. The refusal of the American government to allow legitimate Catholic conscientious objection to the Vietnam War became a cause célèbre for clerical and lay leaders and provided a blueprint for Catholic legal critiques of other forms of federal regulation in the late 1960s and early 1970s—most especially regulations concerning the provision of contraception and abortion.

Over …

The Constitutionality Of The Title Ix Religious Exemption, Madelyn Jacobsen, Rebecca Batty, Editor

Brigham Young University Prelaw Review

Petitioners in Hunter v. Department of Education questioned the constitutionality of the Title IX religious exemption as the basis of their 2021 class-action lawsuit. They claimed that more than 30 religious schools maintained discriminatory policies against LGBTQ students under the exemption. The religious exemption, often painted as unconstitutional discrimination, permits religious schools' adherence to sincerely held religious beliefs—and promotes a distinctive religious education that secular schools lack. This paper examines legal precedents relevant to religious freedom, higher education, and discrimination that demand the Title IX religious exemption remains in effect.

Covid-19, Churches, And Culture Wars, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

The First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause often requires courts to balance competing interests of the highest order. On the one hand, the Constitution recognizes the free exercise of religion as a fundamental right. On the other hand, the government sometimes has compelling reasons for limiting free exercise, especially in situations involving dangers to health and safety. The shutdown and social distancing orders issued during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic not only restricted free exercise but also limited what many people consider to be the core of that exercise: religious worship. But the orders did so in order to …

Comparing Literary And Biblical Hermeneutics To Constitutional And Statutory Interpretation, Robert J. Pushaw Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

Interpreters determine the meaning of language. To interpret literary and biblical texts, scholars have developed detailed rules, methods, and theories of human understanding. This branch of knowledge, “hermeneutics,” features three basic approaches. First, “textualists” treat words as directly conveying their ordinary meaning to a competent reader today. Second, “contextualists” maintain that verbal meaning depends on generally shared linguistic conventions in the particular historical and cultural environment of the author—and that therefore translations or commentaries are necessary to make the writing intelligible to a modern reader. Third, “hermeneutic circle” scholars argue that texts have no objective meaning. Rather, a person’s subjective …

Reconsidering Thornton V. Caldor, Christopher C. Lund

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Religious Accommodation, The Establishment Clause, And Third-Party Harm, Mark Storslee

Faculty Scholarship

In the wake of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, religious accommodation has become increasingly controversial. That controversy has given rise to a new legal theory gaining popularity among academics and possibly a few Supreme Court justices: the idea that the First Amendment's Establishment Clause condemns accommodations whenever they generate anything beyond a minimal cost for third parties.

The third-party thesis is appealing. But this Article argues that there are good reasons to believe it falls short as an interpretation of the Establishment Clause. In its place, the Article offers a new theory for understanding the relationship between costly accommodations and the …

Taking Stock Of The Religion Clauses, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

After a few decades of relative quiet, the Supreme Court has in recent years focused once again on the religion clauses and related statutes.

Reconsidering Christianity As A Support For Secular Law: A Final Reply To Professor Calhoun, Wayne R. Barnes

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This symposium has revolved around Professor Calhoun’s article, which posits that it is completely legitimate, in proposing laws and public policies, to argue for them in the public square based on overtly religious principles. In my initial response, I took issue with his argument that no reasons justify barring faith-based arguments from the public square argument. In fact, I do find reasons justifying the prohibition of “faith-based,” or Christian, arguments in the public square—and, in fact, I find such reasons within Christianity itself. This is because what is being publicly communicated in Christian political argumentation is that if citizens comply …

Church History, Liberty, And Political Morality: A Response To Professor Calhoun, Ian Huyett

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In his address, Professor Calhoun used American Christian abolitionism to illustrate the beneficial role that religion can play in political debate. Surveying the past two millennia, I argue that Christian political thought has protected liberty in every era of the church’s dramatic history. Along the way, I rebut critics—from the left and right—who urge that Christianity’s political influence has been unhelpful or harmful. I also seek to show that statements like “religion has no place in politics” are best understood as expressions of arbitrary bias.

The Paradox Of Christian-Based Political Advocacy: A Reply To Professor Calhoun, Wayne R. Barnes

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Professor Calhoun, in his Article around which this symposium is based, has asserted that it is permissible for citizens to publicly argue for laws or public policy solutions based on explicitly religious reasons. Calhoun candidly admits that he has “long grappled” with this question (as have I, though he for longer), and, in probably the biggest understatement in this entire symposium, notes that Professor Kent Greenawalt identified this as “a particularly significant, debatable, and highly complex problem.” Is it ever. I have a position that I will advance in this article, but I wish to acknowledge at the outset that …

America's Creed: The Inevitable, Sometimes Dangerous, Mixing Of Religion And Politics, David M. Smolin

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Political and philosophical theorists have often advocated for the exclusion of some or all religious perspectives from full participation in politics. Such approaches create criteria—such as public accessibility, public reason, or secular rationale—to legitimate such exclusion. During the 1990s I argued, as an evangelical Christian, against such exclusionary theories, defending the rights to full and equal political participation by evangelical Christians, traditionalist Roman Catholics, and any others who would be restricted by such criteria.

Separation Of Church And State: Jefferson, Lincoln, And The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Show It Was Never Intended To Separate Religion From Politics, Samuel W. Calhoun

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

This Essay argues that it’s perfectly fine for religious citizens to openly bring their faith-based values to public policy disputes. Part II demonstrates that the Founders, exemplified by Thomas Jefferson, never intended to separate religion from politics. Part III, focusing upon Abraham Lincoln’s opposition to slavery, shows that religion and politics have been continuously intermixed ever since the Founding. Part IV, emphasizing the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., argues that no other reasons justify barring faith-based arguments from the public square.

Paliotta V. State Dep’T Of Corrections, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 58 (Sept. 14, 2017), Anna Sichting

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined it must consider the sincere religious beliefs of the individual when evaluating claims under the Free Exercise Clause and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). It is improper to evaluate those claims under the centrality test, which attempts to determine if the individual’s beliefs are central to a tenant of the religion in question. Once the sincere belief is shown, the courts must then fully examine the remaining considerations under the Free Exercise Clause and the RLUIPA.

God And State Preambles, Peter J. Smith, Robert W. Tuttle

Marquette Law Review

Those who question the permissibility of official acknowledgements of God might be surprised to learn that the preambles of forty-five of the fifty state constitutions expressly invoke God. The practice is common in both liberal and conservative states and is equally prevalent in all regions of the country. Virtually all of those preambles give thanks to God, and many also seek God's blessing n the state's endeavors. Yet there has been no detailed assessment of the preambles' history or significance. This paper seeks to remedy that gap.

The preambles complicate the claim that official acknowledgements of God are incompatible with …

Render Unto Caesar: How Misunderstanding A Century Of Free Exercise Jurisprudence Forged And Then Fractured The Rfra Coalition, John S. Blattner

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis provides a comprehensive history of Supreme Court Free Exercise Clause jurisprudence from 1879 until the present day. It describes how a jurisdictional approach to free exercise dominated the Court’s rulings from its first Free Exercise Clause case in 1879 until Sherbert v. Verner in 1963, and how Sherbert introduced an accommodationist precedent which was ineffectively, incompletely, and inconsistently defined by the Court. This thesis shows how proponents of accommodationism furthered a false narrative overstating the scope and consistency of Sherbert’s precedent following the Court’s repudiation of accommodationism and return to full jurisdictionalism with Employment Division v. Smith …

George Washington. Elena Kagan, And The Town Of Greece, New York: The First Amendment And Religious Minorities, Kermit V. Lipez

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.