Religion Law Commons^™

The Right To Enforce: Why Rluipa's Land Use Provision Is A Constitutional Federal Enforcement Power, Qasim Rashid

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA') superseded the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA'), which the Supreme Court held unconstitutional in its application to states in 1997. A two-pronged law, RLUIPA protects prisoners from unjust impositions to their freedom of worship and also ensures religious institutions may use their property for legitimate worship purposes without burdensome zoning law restrictions. This paper focuses specifically on the latter prong and analyzes RLUIPA in light of the growing Islamophobia in America during the previous twenty-four months. For example, the United States Department of Justice reports "of the eighteen RLUIPA matters involving …

A Trinity Of Viewpoints On The Moral Perspective In The Public Square: Murray, Kennedy, And Cuomo, Robert J. Araujo S.J.

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

State-Sponsored Religious Displays In The U.S. And Europe: Introduction, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

On June 22, 2012, the Center for Law and Religion proudly hosted, together with the Department of Law at Libera Universita Maria SS. Assunta (LUMSA), an international conference, State-Sponsored Religious Displays in the U.S. and Europe. Held at LUMSA's campus in Rome, Italy, the conference brought together leading American and European scholars, judges, and government officials to address the legality of public religious displays in different nations. Professor Silvio Ferrari of the University of Milan delivered the Conference Introduction. Panels included Cultural or Religious? Understanding Symbols in Public Places; The Lautsi Case and the Margin of Appreciation; and State-Sponsored Religious …

The Right To Enforce: Why Rluipa's Land Use Provision Is A Constitutional Federal Enforcement Power, Qasim Rashid

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA') superseded the Religious Freedom Restoration Act ("RFRA'), which the Supreme Court held unconstitutional in its application to states in 1997. A two-pronged law, RLUIPA protects prisoners from unjust impositions to their freedom of worship and also ensures religious institutions may use their property for legitimate worship purposes without burdensome zoning law restrictions. This paper focuses specifically on the latter prong and analyzes RLUIPA in light of the growing Islamophobia in America during the previous twenty-four months. For example, the United States Department of Justice reports "of the eighteen RLUIPA matters involving …

Christian Parking, Hindu Parking: Applying Established Civil Rights Principles To Rluipa's Nondiscrimination Provision, Roman P. Storzer, Blair Lazarus Storzer

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

This article is divided into three parts. First, it explores certain issues inherent in a Nondiscrimination claim, including how the Nondiscrimination provision has been mistakenly conflated with other RLUIPA land use provisions, whether a showing of direct hostility toward a particular faith by governmental actors is required, and what might qualify as adequate comparators in a case where a claimant asserts that it was treated differently and worse than similarly situated applicants. Second, the article proposes application of the reasoning in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green to some Nondiscrimination claims. This would be achieved by burden shifting; after the plaintiff …

The Right To Enforce: Why Rluipa's Land Use Provisions Is A Constitutional Federal Enforcement Power, Qasim Rashid

Law Student Publications

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”) superseded the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”), which the Supreme Court held unconstitutional in its application to states in 1997. A two-pronged law, RLUIPA protects prisoners from unjust impositions to their freedom of worship and also ensures religious institutions may use their property for legitimate worship purposes without burdensome zoning law restrictions. This paper focuses specifically on the latter prong and analyzes RLUIPA in light of the growing Islamophobia in America during the previous twenty-four months. For example, the United States Department of Justice reports “of the eighteen RLUIPA matters involving …

Can We Please Stop Talking About Neutrality? Koppelman Between Scalia And Rawls, Chad W. Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

In his essay, Religious Liberty as Liberty, Douglas Laycock cautioned against what he would later dub “the Puritan mistake,” which is the mistake, as he put it, of looking at whether religion is a good (or bad) thing rather than seeing religious liberty as “first and foremost a guarantee of liberty.” We should not, Laycock warned, let our understanding of the religion clauses be driven by what we think, substantively, about the value of religion. It should be driven, instead, by an interest in protecting the freedom of religion, and not religion per se.

Although Andy Koppelman positions himself in …

Health Care Sharing Ministries: Scam Or Solution?, Benjamin Boyd

Journal of Law and Health

Health Care Share Ministries (HCSMs) provide “a health care cost sharing arrangement among persons of similar and sincerely held beliefs.” HCSMs are not-for-profit religious organizations that act as clearinghouses for “those who have medical expenses and those who desire to share the burden of those medical expenses. This Article begins with a survey of the general regulatory landscape for HCSMs. Following that, four key questions about HCSMs structure the rest of this Article. The first question asks, what are HCSMs? To answer that question, this Article examines the basic aspects of the Medi-Share program and the Christian Brotherhood Newsletter. Second, …

Christian Parking, Hindu Parking: Applying Established Civil Rights Principles To Rluipa's Nondiscrimination Provision, Roman P. Storzer, Blair Lazarus Storzer

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

This article is divided into three parts. First, it explores certain issues inherent in a Nondiscrimination claim, including how the Nondiscrimination provision has been mistakenly conflated with other RLUIPA land use provisions, whether a showing of direct hostility toward a particular faith by governmental actors is required, and what might qualify as adequate comparators in a case where a claimant asserts that it was treated differently and worse than similarly situated applicants. Second, the article proposes application of the reasoning in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green to some Nondiscrimination claims. This would be achieved by burden shifting; after the plaintiff …

'The Freedom Of The Church': (Towards) An Exposition, Translation, And Defense, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

This Article was presented at a conference, and is part of a symposium, on the topic of "Freedom of the Church in the Modern Era." In addition to summarizing and re-stating claims made by the author in earlier work – claims having to do with, among other things, church-state separation, the no-establishment rule, legal and social pluralism, and the structural role played by religious and other institutions – the Article attempts to strengthen the argument that the idea of “the freedom of the church” (or something like it) is not a relic or anachronism but instead remains a crucial component …

The Freedom Of The Church (New Revised Standard Version), John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

Significant discussion about the “freedom of church” has recently emerged at the intersection of law and religion scholarship and political theology. That discussion gained additional traction with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Hosanna-Tabor v. E.E.O.C., which recognized the First Amendment’s “special solicitude” for religious organizations. But the freedom of the church is at its core a theological concept, and its potential integration into our constitutional discourse requires a process of translation. The efficacy of any background political concept as legal doctrine will ultimately stand or fall on something akin to what Frederick Schauer has called “constitutional salience.”

The existing debate …

Terry Jones And Global Free Speech In The Internet Age, G. Aaron Leibowitz

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Religious Toleration And Claims Of Conscience, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

One aspect of the issue of toleration of religion is how far the government and others should recognize religious claims of conscience. Such claims will be present in any liberal democracy. The particular controversies on which attention is mainly focused shift, but certain underlying themes remain.

In this essay, I outline what I take to be the major issues about government recognition of religious claims of conscience. I then address the special problems created when a claim of conscience ends up competing with an opposing claim of conscience or with basic premises about fairness and justice. We can conceive of …

Neutrality And The Good Of Religious Freedom: An Appreciative Response To Professor Koppelman, Richard W. Garnett

Journal Articles

This paper is a short response to an address, “And I Don’t Care What It Is: Religious Neutrality in American Law,” delivered by Prof. Andrew Koppelman at a conference, “The Competing Claims of Law and Religion: Who Should Influence Whom?”, which was held at Pepperdine University in February of 2012. In this response, it is suggested – among other things – that “American religious neutrality” is, as Koppelman argues, “coherent and attractive” because and to the extent that it is not neutral with respect to the goal and good of religious freedom.
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Ecclesia Semper Reformanda Est: Radical Reformation And The Irs, Mason Powell

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Bankrupting The Faith, Pamela Foohey

Scholarly Works

This Article presents the results of a comprehensive empirical study of religious organizations that filed bankruptcy under Chapter 11 from the beginning of 2006 to the end of 2011. It examines the institutions’ characteristics, reasons for filing, and case outcomes to investigate whether Chapter 11 is an effective solution to their financial problems. In investigating the religious organizations’ cases, the Article also assesses the role of bankruptcy courts in adjudicating Chapter 11 cases and places the cases within theories about the larger purposes of Chapter 11.

The study finds that the vast majority of debtors are small organizations that operate …

Disentangling Conscience And Religion, Nathan Chapman

Scholarly Works

What does “liberty of conscience” mean? Religious liberty? Freedom of strong conviction? Freedom of thought? Since the Founding Era, Americans have used liberty of conscience to paper over disputes about the proper scope of religious, moral, and philosophical liberty. This Article explores the relationship between conscience and religion in history, political theory, and theology, and proposes a conception of conscience that supports a liberty of conscience distinct from religious liberty. In doing so, it offers a theoretical basis for distinguishing between conscience and religion in First Amendment scholarship and related fields. Conscience is best understood, for purposes of legal theory, …

God And The Profits: Is There Religious Liberty For Money-Makers?, Mark L. Rienzi

Scholarly Articles

Is there a religious way to pump gas, sell groceries, or advertise for a craft store? Litigation over the HHS contraceptive mandate has raised the question whether a for-profit business and its owner can engage in religious exercise under federal law. The federal government has argued, and some courts have found, that the activities of a profit-making business are ineligible for religious freedom protection.

This article offers a comprehensive look at the relationship between profit-making and religious liberty, arguing that the act of earning money does not preclude profit-making businesses and their owners from engaging in protected religious exercise.

Many …

Neutral No More: Secondary Effects Analysis And The Quiet Demise Of The Content-Neutrality Test, Mark L. Rienzi

Scholarly Articles

When the Supreme Court introduced the “secondary effects” doctrine to allow for zoning of adult businesses, critics fell into two camps. Some, like Justice Brennan, predicted dire consequences for the First Amendment, particularly if the doctrine were used in political speech cases. Others, like Professor Laurence Tribe, predicted secondary effects analysis would be limited to sexually explicit speech, and would not threaten the First Amendment. The modern consensus is that the doctrine has, in fact, been limited to cases about sex.

Recent cases demonstrate, however, that the impact of the secondary effects doctrine on the First Amendment has been broader …

On "Unease" And "Idealism": Reflections On Pope Benedict Xvi's Educating Young People In Justice And Peace And Its Message For Law Teachers, Lucia A. Silecchia

Scholarly Articles

Pope Benedict XVI recently wrote about the challenges facing those who have the responsibility for the education of the next generation. His insights, expressed last year, were addressed not simply to a Catholic audience but to all who look to the future and see the obligation to train young people "in justice and peace" to be a noble vocation and one solution to some of the difficulties that face the modern world. Although it was not directed to, or intended primarily for, law professors, the document has much to say to those whose vocation lies in legal education. This essay …