Religion Law Commons^™

A Symposium Precis, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Religious Accommodation And The National Labor Relations Act, Roberto L. Corrada

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues for amending the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") to require employers and unions to accommodate a broader array of employee and third party religious beliefs. By detailing the experiences of several religious adherents, the Article seeks to demonstrate that current statutory and constitutional doctrines fail to adequately protect religious freedom.

After identifying numerous conflicts between the NLRA and religious exercises, the Article explains why a legislative accommodation for religion is appropriate given the long-standing history in United States labor law of accommodating various secular interests (e.g. federalism and free speech) that may conflict with optimal labor policy. …

Ancient Answers To Modern Questions: Death, Dying, And Organ Transplants - A Jewish Law Perspective, Stephen J. Werber

Journal of Law and Health

To understand the application of Jewish Law to issues of death and the dying process one must first be aware of the importance of life, and saving life (pikuach nefesh), in Jewish thought. Judaism "attribut[es] . . . infinite value to human life. Infinity being indivisible, any fraction of life, however limited its expectancy or its health, remains equally infinite in value." The Mishnah teaches that creation began with a single human being to "teach you that to destroy a single human soul is equivalent to destroying an entire world; and that to sustain a single soul is …

God, Money, And Schools: Voucher Programs Impugn The Separation Of Church And State, 30 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1 (1996), Harlan A. Loeb, Debbie N. Kaminer

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Religious Liberty And Fair Housing: Must A Landlord Rent Against His Conscience, 29 J. Marshall L. Rev. 455 (1996), James C. Geoly, Kevin R. Gustafson

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Developments In Liability Theories And Defenses, Robert A. Destro

Scholarly Articles

Litigators with experience in the field of religious liberty believe that courts do not seem to take religious liberty claims and defenses very seriously; however, it is difficult to know why. To be sure, the anecdotal evidence is certainly there, not only in the reported cases, but also in the actual courtroom experiences of those who attempt to raise religious liberty claims and defenses. In one Texas tort case, a trial court judge stated that she would not permit the Church "to hide behind the first amendment;" in a Maryland case a number of years ago, I was asked by …

‘By What Right?’: The Sources And Limits Of Federal Court And Congressional Jurisdiction Over Matters ‘Touching’ Religion, Robert A. Destro

Scholarly Articles

This Article examines the extent to which the Court's power "to say what the law is"" on the sensitive subject of religious liberty has been, and continues to be, constrained by the lawmaking powers of Congress and the states. Though the topic is obviously an important one, it has not been examined systematically. Most of the case law and commentary focuses on the limits which the Constitution imposes, or should be held to impose, on the powers of Congress and the states. The Court's power to define those limits appears, by contrast, to be one of those "fundamental assumptions [that] …

When Religion Becomes A Nuisance: Balancing Land Use And Religious Freedom When Activities Of Religious Institutions Bring Outsiders Into The Neighborhood, Shelley Ross Saxer

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Challenges In Judging: Some Insights From The Writings Of Moses, Gordon J. Beggs

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

I would like to use the writings of Moses as a lens to examine some challenges in judging. Moses authored the first five books of the Old Testament known as the Pentateuch or books of the law--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. He is probably best known for leading the Hebrew people out of bondage in Egypt and for receiving the Ten Commandments. As our discussion today will reveal, he may also be credited with authoring some significant principles with respect to the judicial function.

What's In A Name - Nothing Good If It's Friday: The Seventh Circuit Invalidates Good Friday Public School Holiday, 29 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1031 (1996), Joanne Yasus

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reverence For Life And Environmental Ethics In Biblical Law And Covenant, Richard H. Hiers

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article undertakes to examine the covenants and biblical laws concerning human relations with the earth and the various life forms whose habitat it provides. Of course biblical texts do not all speak with a common voice. These texts include differing, and even conflicting perspectives and understandings. However, biblical law and covenant show much greater concern for the well-being of “the environment” and all living things than either proponents or critics of Judaism and Christianity generally have recognized. Many other biblical texts also are relevant to the subject of this article; some of these are noted as background. Because it …

Secular Fundamentalism, Religious Fundamentalism, And The Search For Truth In Contemporary America, Daniel O. Conkle

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In this article, I suggest that America's ongoing culture war is a product, in part, of an epistemic crisis that confounds our collective search for truth. In a previous article addressing aspects of this topic, I expressed concerns about religious fundamentalism. Here, I explore the ways in which secular thinking might likewise be described as "fundamentalist." In particular, I discuss secular fundamentalism in textual interpretation, secular fundamentalism in the form of political liberalism, and comprehensive secular fundamentalism, which extends to private questions of truth. I then discuss the various problems - not only political, but also theological - that are …

Establishment Of Religion

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

On Being A Muslim Corporate Lawyer, Azizah Y. Al-Hibri

Law Faculty Publications

It appears to me that religion subconsciously informs our individual professional practice and that a non-humanitarian form of secularism has quietly shaped our corporate laws. The attendant dissonance causes severe dissatisfaction, and at times even disfunction, in our society. The claim that our present corporate laws are imbued with a non-humanist secularist perspective deserves closer examination from a religious vantage point. Given our constitutional guarantees, our present legal structure appears to place undue burdens on persons of faith in this country. A more just balance between religious and various forms of secular perspectives is, I submit, a worthy goal for …

Yoder And The Question Of Equality, Laura S. Underkuffler

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Winifred Fallers Sullivan, Paying The Words Extra: Religious Discourse In The Supreme Court Of The United States (1994), Leslie C. Griffin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Conflict Between Religious Exercise And Efforts To Eradicate Housing Discrimination Against Nontraditional Couples: Should Free Exercise Protect Landlord Bias?, Scott A. Johnson

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

"The Harvest Is Plentiful, But The Laborers Are Few": Hiring Practices And Religiously Affiliated Universities, Robert John Araujo

University of Richmond Law Review

This is a paper with a modest goal about an immodest topic: how mankind does God's work in this world. In particular, I address a small part of this rather large question: how do religiously affiliated schools make their modest contribution to this work? More particularly, who gets chosen to be a laborer in bringing in the plentiful harvest. The laborer is the teacher or administrator, the vineyard is the religiously affiliated university or college of the late twentieth century United States. Consequently, I address employment practices: who gets hired as a laborer and by what criteria is this special …

Review Essay: The Challenges Of Religous Neutrality, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

Levine begins this review essay by noting that at the outset of his discussion, Gedicks notes the difficulty one faces in critically engaging Supreme Court decisions in the area of church and state law. Gedicks goes on to premise his analysis on the identification of “competing rhetorical discourses of church-state relations,” through which he attempts to “organize virtually all of religion clause doctrine.” Gedicks applies this phenomenon, which he terms “discourse,” to church and state law. Thus, in The Rhetoric of Church and State: A Critical Analysis of Religion Clause Jurisprudence, Professor Gedicks succeeds in his goal of providing a …

Free Exercise Of Religion

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Cosmological Question: A Response To Milner S. Ball's 'All The Company Of Heaven', Joseph Vining

Articles

We do not disagree, and I do not doubt, that legal processes are sources of injustice, violent oppression, crushing of the spirit, destruction of lives, actual death. I have only to look at The Trial1 again. Nor do we disagree that there are strings of words, statements, put out by officials, lawyers, and lawyer-academics, often called "rules," that cannot be taken into oneself and that by their very nature evoke manipulation in response, avoidance if they cannot be ignored. In their name violent imposition of pure will occurs all the time, and power is exercised by those who can secure …

L'Affaire Des Foulards--Discrimination, Or The Price Of A Secular Public Education System?, Cynthia D. Baines

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note examines the recent controversy over France's ban against "ostentatious" religious symbols in public schools. The only ostentatious symbol targeted by the French government, however, has been the head scarves worn by Muslim schoolgirls. The author explores the roots of the current ban by examining France's tradition of assimilation of immigrants and its constitutionally mandated secular public education system. The author also compares France's interests in prohibiting head scarves with the Muslim students' interests in practicing their religion. Finally, the author concludes that the French policy of banning head scarves from school is not only impractical, but likely a …

Kiryas Joel And Two Mistakes About Equality , Abner S. Greene

Faculty Scholarship

In 1948, Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum founded the congregation Yetev Lev D'Satmar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Over the next twenty-five years, the Satmar Hasidic sect grew, and members started thinking about leaving the urban, heterogeneous setting for a place where they could live in relative isolation. In 1974, Satmar families began leaving Brooklyn for upstate New York. They purchased property in the Town of Monroe, and later, after a zoning dispute with the Town, incorporated as the Village of Kiryas Joel. As of 1990, approximately 10,000 Satmar Jews lived in or around the Village. The Satmars dress in conformance with a semiformal …

Religious Liberty And Democratic Politics, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Some time ago, President Clinton talked to a gathering of religious journalists about abortion. He said that he did not believe that the biblical passages often cited by those who are "pro-life" indicate· clearly that abortion is wrong and should be prohibited. The reasons many people have for wanting abortion to be prohibited, or for allowing abortion, relate to their religious convictions. These people, for the most part, regard it as perfectly appropriate that religious perspectives help determine public policy on abortion in the United States. Others object. They say that the religious views of some people should not be …

All Things Being Equal, John H. Garvey

Scholarly Articles

I will discuss the effect that the proposed Religious Equality Amendment might have on existing First Amendment law.

An Anti-Liberal Argument For Religious Freedom, John H. Garvey

Scholarly Articles

I want to consider why we protect freedom of religion as a constitutional right. The commonsense answer, which I think hits close to the truth, is that we protect it because religion is important. I will try to show that this answer is better than the alternatives which liberal theory offers.

Toward A Religious Minority Voice: A Look At Free Exercise Law Through A Religious Minority Perspective, Samuel J. Levine

Scholarly Works

Legal scholars have recently advanced theories emphasizing the importance of perspectives in the law. Perspective scholarship recognizes that laws are necessarily shaped by society's dominant forces, including its biases and preconceptions. Perspective scholars attempt to understand how these forces have shaped our laws, and they suggest changes to accommodate those affected by society's biases. In this Article, Professor Levine introduces the concept of a religious minority perspective. He develops the concept of a religious minority perspective in the context of several, prominent Free Exercise cases. Professor Levine discusses these cases in his presentation of the central themes of a religious …

Religious Expression In The Public Square – The Building Blocks For An Intermediate Position, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

The problem of religious expression in the public square is not primarily legal in a narrow sense. We are not talking about whether people are allowed to voice certain kinds of opinions or to vote on certain kinds of grounds. The problem is about how citizens and officials in liberal democracies should act. My own position on this problem is an intermediate one, in a sense I shall shortly explain. Its plausibility depends on some sense of the strengths and weaknesses of positions at each end of the spectrum. I shall begin with a thumbnail sketch of these.

Religion-Based Peremptory Challenges After Batson V. Kentucky And J.E.B. V. Alabama: An Equal Protection And First Amendment Analysis, Benjamin Hoorn Barton

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that under Batson, J.E.B., the First Amendment, and the Equal Protection Clause, religion-based peremptory challenges are unconstitutional. This Note asserts that the analysis of governmental religious discrimination, such as a peremptory challenge, is the same under either the First Amendment or the Equal Protection Clause because both apply strict scrutiny to purposeful government discrimination.

Part I examines Batson and J.E.B. in greater detail and states a model for analyzing discriminatory peremptory challenges in which such challenges are treated as intentional governmental discrimination subject to heightened scrutiny. Part II argues that under the First Amendment, intentional governmental …

Section 8: Freedom Of Religion, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.