Religion Law Commons^™

A Higher Law: Abraham Lincoln's Use Of Biblical Imagery, Wilson Huhn

Akron Law Faculty Publications

Lincoln’s use of biblical imagery in seven of his works: the Peoria Address, the House Divided Speech, his Address at Chicago, his Speech at Lewistown, the Word Fitly Spoken fragment, the Gettysburg Address, and the Second Inaugural. Lincoln uses biblical imagery to express the depth of his own conviction, the stature of the founders of this country, the timeless and universal nature of the principles of the Declaration, and the magnitude of our moral obligation to defend those principles. Lincoln persuaded the American people to embrace the standard “all men are created equal” and to make it part of our …

Islamic Law And The Making And Remaking Of The Iraqi Legal System, Kristen Stilt

Faculty Working Papers

This article examines the drafting process of the new Iraqi constitution, which took place in 2004 and 2005 as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It addresses the role of Islamic law in the Iraqi legal system prior to the invasion and considers how a new constitution may deal with the question and analyzes, based on Iraq's history, current situation, and the experience of other similar countries, how Islamic law may be retained or incorporated into the new Iraqi legal system. While the constitutional discussion is important, the Article also shows who debates over Islamic law in Iraq …

How Is Islam The Solution?: Constitutional Visions Of Contemporary Islamists, Kristen Stilt

Faculty Working Papers

This Article uses documents issued by the Muslim Brotherhood, in particular the lengthy 2007 "Political Party" Platform, and personal interviews with Brotherhood leadership to examine the group's specific goals and beliefs for the place of religion within the structure of the Egyptian legal system. While many important angles need to be explored, I focus on one topic that has drawn the most attention to the Brotherhood, the place of religion in the state, or religion defined and enforced by state institutions. I show that the Brotherhood carefully acknowledges the existing constitutional structure and jurisprudence on the position of Islam in …

The Treatment Of Isolationist Minorities, Gabriel Rauterberg

Faculty Scholarship

This Note examines what may be the most radical challenge posed by religious subcultures to the liberal politics of modern industrial nations – that of isolationist, nonliberal ( or even illiberal) religious minorities. These subcultures do not seek to integrate with mainstream society or gain power within it, but to withdraw in order to maintain norms widely discrepant from those that are socially dominant. They often seek to place restrictions upon their own members' freedom or activities, in part to maintain the group's differences from the greater society. These cultures, characterized by features as distinctive as collective property ownership, pacificism, …

Fundamental Questions About The Religion Clauses: Reflections On Some Critiques, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

This essay responds to some major critiques of my work on the religion clauses. The effort has seemed worth undertaking because many issues the critics raise lie at the core of one’s approach to free exercise and nonestablishment, and some of those issues matter greatly for constitutional adjudication more broadly. Like any author, perhaps, my reaction to reading some comments has been that I did not quite say that, but I shall not bore you with these quibbles about how well I explained myself in the past. Rather, I shall try to confront the genuinely basic questions that many of …

Not Your Mother's Remedy: A Civil Action Response To The Westboro Baptist Church's Military Funeral Demonstrations, Chelsea Brown

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religious Establishment And Autonomy, Andrew Koppelman

Faculty Working Papers

Kent Greenawalt claims that one rationale for nonestablishment of religion is personal autonomy. If, however, the law is barred from manipulating people in religious directions (and thus violating their autonomy), while it remains free to manipulate them in nonreligious directions (and thus violate their autonomy in exactly the same way), autonomy as such is not what is being protected. The most promising alternative is to understand religion as a distinctive human good that is being protected from government interference.

House Of Wisdom Or A House Of Cards? Why Teaching Islam In U.S. Foreign Detention Facilities Violates The Establishment Clause, Scott Thompson

Publications

In an attempt to erase Islamic-fundamentalist sentiments held by detainees apprehended in the course of the "war on terror," the United States government began teaching and preaching a more moderate version of the Qur'an and Islam to detainees in Iraq. One such detention program in Iraq was dubbed the House of Wisdom. But the wisdom of such a practice is highly suspect--both because it likely runs afoul of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and because it may be doing more harm than good to the American effort to defuse Islamic-extremism and anti-American sentiment. This Article examines the practice …

Corruption Of Religion And The Establishment Clause, Andrew Koppelman

Faculty Working Papers

Government neutrality toward religion is based on familiar considerations: the importance of avoiding religious conflict, alienation of religious minorities, and the danger that religious considerations will introduce a dangerous irrational dogmatism into politics and make democratic compromise more difficult. This paper explores one consideration, prominent at the time of the framing, that is often overlooked: the idea that religion can be corrupted by state involvement with it. This idea is friendly to religion but, precisely for that reason, is determined to keep the state away from religion.

If the religion-protective argument for disestablishment is to be useful today, it cannot …

Do Churches Matter - Towards An Institutional Understanding Of The Religion Clauses, Richard W. Garnett

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Outrageous God: Emotional Distress, Tort Liability, And The Limits Of Religious Advocacy, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

When Matthew Snyder died fighting for his country, his memory was celebrated, and his loss mourned. The Westboro Baptist Church conducted a celebration of a different kind by picketing near Matthew’s funeral service. The church held signs that read, “You are going to hell,” “God hates you,” “Thank God for dead soldiers,” and “Semper fi fags.” In the weeks following the funeral, the church posted on its website, godhatesfags.com, an “epic” entitled “The Burden of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder.” Matthew’s burden, as the church saw it, was that he had been “raised for the devil” and “taught to defy …

What Yoder Wrought: Religious Disparagement, Parental Alienation And The Best Interests Of The Child, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Despite its grounding in a specific and peculiar set of facts, the strict scrutiny mandate of Wisconsin v. Yoder (decided in 1972) has changed the constitutional landscape of custody cases - - and it has done so in a way that is unsound both as a matter of law and policy. Following Yoder, most courts require a showing of harm to the child, or a substantial threat of harm to the child, before placing any restrictions on exposure to a parent’s religious beliefs and practices. This harm standard leaves children in an untenable position when parents compete for “spiritual custody,” …

Life After The Establishment Clause, Steven G. Gey

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Substantive Neutrality Revisited, Douglas Laycock

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.

Instruments Of Accommodation: The Military Chaplaincy And The Constitution, Ira C. Lupu, Robert W. Tuttle

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Establishment Clause And Religious Expression In Government Settings: Four Variables In Search Of A Standard, Daniel O. Conkle

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Establishment Clause Limits On Free Exercise Accommodations, Kent Greenawalt

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

When Accommodations For Religion Violoate The Establishment Clause: Regularizing The Supreme Court's Analysis, Carl H. Esbeck

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religious Exemptions And The Common Good: A Reply To Professor Carmella, Laura S. Underkuffler

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Responsible Freedom Under The Religion Clauses: Exemptions, Legal Pluralism, And The Common Good, Angela C. Carmella

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Expressive Jurisprudence Of The Establishment Clause, Ivan E. Bodensteiner, Alex Geisinger

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Social Reproduction And Religious Reproduction: A Democratic-Communitarian Analysis Of The Yoder Problem, Josh Chafetz

ExpressO

In 1972, Wisconsin v. Yoder presented the Supreme Court with a sharp clash between the state's interest in social reproduction through education -- that is, society's interest in using the educational system to perpetuate its collective way of life among the next generation -- and the parents' interest in religious reproduction -- that is, their interest in passing their religious beliefs on to their children. This Article will take up the challenge of that clash, a clash which continues to be central to current debates over issues like intelligent design in the classroom. This Article engages with the competing theories …

Religion In The Classroom In Germany And The United States, Edward J. Eberle

Law Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, Professor Eberle evaluates the relationship of religion in the classroom in Germany and the United States, as formulated by the countries' highest courts, the German Constitutional Court and the United States Supreme Court Pursuant to the German model of church-state cooperation, public finds are channeled to religious organizations, such as, for example, using the machinery of the state to rise and disperse tax monies to religious organizations. Religious groups may then use the tax monies collected to support religious education in the public schools. However, pursuant to guidelines announced by the German Constitutional Court, teaching of religious …

The Demise Of The First Amendment As A Guarantor Of Religious Freedom, Ivan E. Bodensteiner

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Spiritual Custody: Relational Rights And Constitutional Commitments, Jeffrey Shulman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Patricia and David Zummo were married on December 17, 1978. When they divorced ten years later, the Zummos were unable to come to agreement about the religious upbringing of their three children. Prior to their marriage, Patricia and David had agreed that they would raise their children in the Jewish faith, and while they were married, "the Zummo family participated fully in the life of the Jewish faith and community." But after the divorce David wanted to take the children to Roman Catholic services as he saw fit, and he refused to arrange for the children's attendance at Hebrew School …

Constitutional Conversations And New Religious Movements: A Comparative Case Study, Leigh H. Greenhaw, Michael H. Koby

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Using the metaphor of a constitutional conversation to compare the treatment of a relatively new and unpopular religion by the legal systems of the United States, Russia, and Spain, this Article examines the methodology by which laws affecting religion are made and enforced. It uses as a case study the interaction of the Jehovah's Witnesses with the legal system of the United States, comparing it with more recent interactions in Russia and Spain. The Authors argue that while the experience in the United States was profoundly influenced by a common-law methodology, the experience in two civil-law countries, Russia and Spain, …

Assimilation, Toleration, And The State's Interest In The Development Of Religious Doctrine, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

Thirty-five years ago, in the context of a church-property dispute, Justice William Brennan observed that government interpretation of religious doctrine and judicial intervention in religious disputes are undesirable, because when civil courts undertake to resolve [doctrinal] controversies..., the hazards are ever present of inhibiting the free development of religious doctrine and of implicating secular interests in matters of purely ecclesiastical concern. This statement, at first, seems wise and fittingly cautious, even unremarkable and obvious. On examination, though, it turns out to be intriguing, elusive, and misleading. Indeed, Justice Brennan's warning presents hazards of its own, and its premises - if …

The Distinctive Place Of Religious Entities In Our Constitutional Order, Ira C. Lupu, Robert Tuttle

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Private Religious Choice In German And American Constitutional Law: Government Funding And Government Religious Speech, Ingrid B. Wuerth

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

We will never face Germany's specific problems of religion and government, arising as they do from its particular history. The sharply contested religion cases from Germany in the late 1990s do, however, point to problems with our growing reliance on private religious choice analysis that demand our attention in both government funding and speech cases. To understand the problems of funding religious groups in neutral programs, we must back up and ask the foundational question: what goals may the government pursue with its funding? The broader those goals are defined, the greater the potential distortion of private religious choice, through …