Religion Law Commons^™

Laïcité In Comparative Perspective (Conference): Foreword, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

On June 11, 2010, the Center for Law and Religion at St. John's University School of Law held its inaugural event, an academic conference at the University's Paris campus. "Laïcité in Comparative Perspective" brought together scholars from the United States and Europe to explore the French concept of laïcité and compare it with models of church-state relations in other countries, particularly the United States. Participants included Douglas Laycock (University of Virginia), who offered the Conference Introduction; Nathalie Caron (Université Paris-Est Créteil); Blandine Chelini-Pont (Université Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille); Nina Crimm (St. John's University); Marc DeGirolami (St. John's University); Javier Martínez-Torrón Universidad …

Elusive Equality: The Armenian Genocide And The Failure Of Ottoman Legal Reform, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

I would like to thank the organizers for inviting me to deliver some remarks this morning. By way of background, I am not a historian or genocide scholar, but a law professor with an interest in comparative law and religion. Comparative law and religion is a relatively new field. It explores how different legal regimes reflect, and influence, the relationships that religious communities have with the state and with each other. My recent work compares Islamic and Christian conceptions of law, a subject that has engaged Muslims and Christians since their first encounters in the seventh century.

When I approach …

Fiqh And Canons: Reflections On Islamic And Christian Jurisprudence, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

Although American scholarship has begun to address both Christian and Islamic jurisprudence in a serious way, virtually none of the literature attempts to compare the place of law in these two world religions. This Essay begins to compare Islamic and Christian conceptions of law and suggests some implications for contemporary debates about religious dispute settlement. Islam and Christianity are subtle and complex religions. Each has competing strands; each has evolved over millennia and expressed itself differently over time. Moreover, although systematic treatments of Islamic law are beginning to appear in English, much remains available only in languages, like Arabic, that …

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 …

Isu-Isu Pemelukan Islam Menurut Undang-Undang Negara Brunei Darussalam., Muhammad Bahrin Haji Alias

Student Works (2010-2019)

The number of conversion to Islam cases in Brunei Darussalam has arisen yearly. However, due to incompetency or legal infrastructure, any issue relating to the conversion cases, could not be handled and administered efficiently. Such weakness in legal aspect has affected the court‟s reputation and sometimes conflicts especially Syariah Court to discharge their duty effectively. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify and discuss to what extent current legal structures able resolve cases relating to conversion to Islam. To achieve this, the research is enhanced by the library research and field study in order to obtain relevant data. …

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 …

Mulieris Dignitatem And The Exclusivity Of Marriage Under Law, Howard Bromberg

Articles

Jesus Christ established monogamy, the marriage of one man to one woman, as the canonical norm of his church and the juridical norm for all nations. This was a unique event in the history of the cultures and religions of the world. The Catholic Church has always defended its canonical norm of monogamy, often with great opposition. Through its influence, monogamy has been established as law in the Western world and in almost all cultures influenced by Western law and norms. The emerging jurisprudence of the United States, however, rejects any religious derivation as the basis of our laws. With …

The Creation Of Authority In A Sermon By St. Augustine, James Boyd White

Articles

My way of honoring Joe today will not be to describe or extol his achievements directly but to try to show something of what I have learned from him, particularly in the way I approach a new text and problem, in this case the creation of authority in one of Augustine's sermons.

January Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“My compatriots' vote to ban minarets is fuelled by fear” by Tariq Ramadan. The Guardian. November 29, 2009.

Democracy And Flame-Fanning Populists: An Undesirable Yet Inevitable Combination, Richard Burchill

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Tariq Ramadan views the recent referendum in Switzerland inserting a ban against the building of minarets into the Swiss Constitution, as a vote against Muslims not only in Switzerland, but across Europe. Those of a more tolerant sensibility will of course agree with Ramadan on this issue and will easily criticize the Swiss for “getting it wrong” by voting in favor of this constitutional amendment. There is no question that a constitutional vote on what is essentially an issue of local planning permission is, as Ramadan describes it, a silly initiative. However, this is also the nature of democracy as …

Of Minarets, Headscarves, And Cartoons, Kurt Mills

Human Rights & Human Welfare

It is difficult not to agree with Tariq Ramadan. The fear of and discrimination against Muslims in Western societies since 9/11 is clear and worrying. The anti-Muslim populism he cites is real, although it may also be part of a broader anti-immigrant populism. The posters he describes are extremely disturbing, and reminiscent of World War II propaganda. They are an artifact of fear of the misunderstood “other.”

Minarets Vote Compromises Human Rights For Everyone, Anna Talbot

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Minarets, like church steeples, are a physical manifestation of religion. There is little doubt, then, that their recent banning in Switzerland following a referendum constitutes a breach of the right to freedom of religion, with respect to the right to manifest ones religion. This right is protected under a number of instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 18), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) (Article 18), and the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 9). Under these instruments, the right to manifest ones religion can only be limited if such a limitation is necessary …

Much Ado About Nothing Much: Protestant Episcopal Church In The Diocese Of Virginia V. Truro Church, Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

Law Faculty Publications

Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia u. Truro Church ("Truro") involves a property dispute. The core issue is who owns or controls property held in trust for an Episcopal congregation after a majority of that congregation votes to disaffiliate from the Episcopal Church of the United States of America ("TEC") and affiliate with a different church. Deciding a church property dispute is inherently difficult because courts are generally "not a constitutionally permissible forum" to resolve ecclesiastical issues. Indeed, the desire to avoid such issues can lead courts to decline to decide particular cases. However, faced with the property …

Undoing Neutrality?: From Church-State Separation To Judeo-Christian Tolerance, Frederick Mark Gedicks

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

In Celebration Of Steven Shiffrin's The Religious Left And Church-State Relations, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Steven Shiffrin's The Religious Left and Church-State Relations is a truly remarkable book in many respects. I shall briefly note a few of its striking features, including some illustrative passages, and outline a number of its central themes, before tackling what for me is its most challenging and perplexing set of theses – the relations between constitutional and political discourse, and between religious liberals, on the one hand, and religious conservatives and secular liberals on the other.

We might well think of this as two books in one: a book about the constitutional law of free exercise and non-establishment, and …

Refusals Of Conscience: What Are They And When Should They Be Accommodated?, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Approaching this subject as a decided nonexpert, I want to explore a number of questions about a right to conscience in respect to efusals to provide health-care services. My hope is that the questions will seem important and relevant, even if some of my tentative answers are controversial or even misguided.

It is helpful to distinguish three levels of analysis: 1) What would be an ideal scope for rights of conscience if we could put aside difficulties of administration and political feasibility? 2) What would be a desirable approach given administrative and political realities? 3) And in what rhetoric should …

The Significance Of Conscience, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Conscience, like most words that describe human experience and recommend human action, has changed its meanings over time and takes on subtly different meanings in different contexts. Since the time of Thomas Aquinas, when conscience referred to moral judgments about action, and our founding era, when “freedom of conscience” dominantly referred to individual religious liberty, our understanding has evolved. In this paper, I concentrate on present usage. My aims are partially descriptive and mainly normative. My hope is that by clarifying various ways the notion of conscience is conceived, I can contribute to a thoughtful elaboration of normative issues …

Family Values In The Jewish Tradition, J. David Bleich

Articles

In Family Values in the Jewish Tradition, Professor J. David Bleich presents Judaism as a religion of law. He describes the family unit, "both as a social unit and as a legal institution," and how it helps to provide comfort, companionship, and stability. He discusses the role of reproduction within the family unit, artificial insemination, and the homosexual act (not the homosexual as a person). Professor Bleich concludes with a discussion of the phrase, "be fruitful and multiply." He notes that this phrase is understood as both a commandment and a blessing.