Church and State
stcynic | August 10, 2006Here's yet another case of a university refusing to recognize a Christian student group because they require that officers of the group be Christians, this time the University of Wisconsin. This is the same school that absurdly ruled that RAs could not hold bible studies in their rooms, even during their off hours, because it made them less "approachable". As I've written before, there are several such cases going around the country, but Wisconsin is in the same 7th judicial district. The controlling precedent there was just laid down by the court of appeals in CLS v Southern Illinois, which…
stcynic | August 3, 2006An admitted pedophile in Ohio is actually trying to make the argument in court that having sex with children is protected under the free exercise clause because it's part of the doctrine of the religion he invented.
A man accused of sexually assaulting nine boys with physical or mental disabilities told a judge that having sex with children is a sacred ritual protected by civil rights laws.
Phillip Distasio, who said he is the leader of a church called Arcadian Fields Ministries, represented himself at his pretrial hearing Wednesday. He is charged with 74 counts including rape, pandering…
stcynic | July 29, 2006This one is a high school equivalent of the various college cases going on involving whether a school can refuse recognition of a religious group because it restricts its membership to members of that same religion. It involves a public high school in Kent County, Washington that refuses to recognize a student bible study group because that group requires that its members be Christians who accept the Bible as the authoritative word of God. The case is currently in the appeals court in the 9th circuit, where a 3 judge panel just heard oral argument on it. The district court ruled in favor of…
stcynic | July 29, 2006Jon Rowe and I have spent much of the last two years pointing out the numerous false quotations and false claims about the religious views of the founding fathers that are tossed about by both sides in debate over church/state separation. While false quotes are not as common on the separationist side, they're not unheard of, and we still have to deal with the perpetual "they were all deists" claims, which is as false as claiming that they were all Christians. Jon has found an unlikely ally in that battle in Derek Wallace, a homeschooled Christian conservative who has written this post…
stcynic | July 28, 2006Jon Rowe noticed that Roy Moore is now writing for the Worldnutdaily too, but he went into a lot more detail on the many problems with Moore's legal theories. Well worth reading.
stcynic | July 27, 2006Here's a twist on the legal debate over school voucher programs. Maine has a school voucher program for people from small towns that don't have public schools, a program that goes back over a century. In 1980, however, the law was amended to forbid the vouchers from being used at religious parochial schools. A suit was filed claiming that this was religious discrimination, but the Maine Supreme Court upheld the law in April. The plaintiffs have filed cert asking the US Supreme Court to hear the case. It will be interesting to see if the Court agrees to take the case.
The two obvious…
stcynic | July 11, 2006In another case of a university refusing to recognize a Christian student group, CLS v Southern Illinois University, an appeals court has ruled that in favor of the Christian Legal Society. This is similar to the North Carolina case and several others around the country. This reverses a lower court ruling. It is well in line with a long line of cases, including Rosenberger and Lamb's Chapel, that determined that if a public institution is going to allow generally applicable recognition, benefits or access to such groups they cannot discriminate against religious groups.
stcynic | July 5, 2006Bartholemew sent the information about what is going on in Indian River Schools in Deleware, where a Jewish family has been so badly harrassed that they had to leave town, to Jesus' General, who naturally ran with it (for those who don't know, Jesus' General is sort of the Stephen Colbert of the blogosphere, but specifically targeting the religious right, which makes for amusing satire). He sent a message to Nedd Kareiva, the STACLU founder, who actually published the address and phone number of the Jewish family in the midst of that harrassment:
Dear Mr. Kareiva,
Please allow me to be the…
stcynic | July 3, 2006Well, it's not the case that's ridiculous (though they may well not win it in court), but the action that led to it. Here's one of those situations that just feeds into the paranoia that says people are out to destroy any religious expression in public at all. It's not true, of course, this is just the actions of a stupid administrator who doesn't know the law, but it still has the same effect. At Henry Jackson High School in Washington, an administrator overruled the school's wind ensemble and told them they could not play Ave Maria during graduation because it was religious in nature.
For…
stcynic | July 1, 2006If even 10% of the allegations in this case are correct, it's one of the most outrageous cases I've ever seen. The Indian River School District in Delaware is accused by a Jewish family of pushing Christianity so agressively and viciously that the family has moved to Wilmington because they feared reprisals from the town after filing the suit. It's the story of a Jewish family, the only one in an enormous school district, essentially being tormented. Read it for yourself. I want to follow this case in court, because if the facts support those allegations that's absolutely stunning.
stcynic | June 29, 2006HR 2679 is not the only attempt by the religious right to rig the rules of the game because they keep losing. HR 2389, the "Pledge Protection Act of 2005", is another bill to do the same thing in a different way, by limiting the jurisdiction of Federal courts to hear any case involving the pledge of allegiance:
no court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, the Pledge of Allegiance, as defined in section 4…
stcynic | June 28, 2006Here's a new church/state lawsuit (see actual complaint here), and one in which the Alliance Defense Fund is on the right side for a change. The city of Idaho Springs, Colorado refused to allow a religious group to use the city council chambers for a National Day of Prayer meeting that was planned for the city grounds outside the building (they wanted to use the chambers in case of inclement weather). They had the permit to hold the meeting outside, but a city administrator said they could not use the inside facilities because the meeting was of a religious nature, citing city policy which…
stcynic | June 28, 2006Dembski's Sycophant-in-Chief has a brief post supporting the passage of HR 2679. It's predictably ill-reasoned.
This bill, introduced in the U.S. House with 50 cosponsers, seeks to bar awarding attorney's fees in lawsuits involving the 1st amendment establishment clause and limit the awards to injunctive relief. The multi-million dollar attorney fees collected by the ACLU have had a chilling effect on the religious freedom clause of the 1st amendment.
One can argue, of course, over the proper balance between the establishment clause and the free exercise clause. But even if one believes that…
stcynic | June 25, 2006The Rutherford Institute, one of the more credible religious right legal groups, has announced that they have agreed to file a Federal lawsuit in the case of the Colorado valedictorian who had her microphone cut off for speaking too bluntly about her religious faith during a graduation address. The case will be on both free speech and equal protection grounds, and as I said last week, I think they've got a strong case on both grounds.
stcynic | June 23, 2006The House Judiciary Committee held hearings yesterday on HR 2679, the "Public Expression of Religion Act of 2005." This bill is being pushed heavily by the religious right because it would prohibit the awarding of legal fees to successful plaintiffs in establishment clause cases. Currently, if you sue the government for a constitutional violation and are successful - if the court agrees that the government has acted unconstitutionally - the judge, at his or her discretion, may order the agency that violated the constitution to pay reasonable legal fees for the other side. This is mandated in…
stcynic | June 21, 2006I reported a couple weeks ago about the hearings held in the Louisiana state legislature to try and edit the ten commandments to come up with a single set that would satisfy all religions (most people are unaware that there are at least three different versions - one Protestant, one Catholic and one Jewish). The press in the state is now reporting that they've given up on that quest:
The Legislature bowed out of the debate over what version of the Ten Commandments should be used in displays at government buildings.
Instead, the proposed law sent to Gov. Kathleen Blanco on Monday removed the…
stcynic | June 19, 2006Some of you may have seen the story of a Las Vegas high school cutting off a speech by the school's valedictorian because she deviated from the approved script and began talking about her faith in God. And this is one case where I'm going to part ways with the ACLU; the school was wrong, both in cutting off the speech and in attempting to censor it in the first place. The school and the ACLU are both arguing that because the graduation is a school-sponsored event, the valedictorian's speech amounts to school-sponsored speech:
Officials and a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union said…
stcynic | June 15, 2006Via Howard Friedman comes this story about a church/state case in South Carolina. Woodland High School has been renting its gym to a Southern Baptist church on Sundays for church services for nearly a year for $250 per week. But the school has been trying to evict the church, claiming that they did not intend the arrangement to be permanent and that the church is being subsidized by paying below market rent. U.S. District Judge David Norton just issued an order saying that the church could continue to use the gymasium under the current arrangement until the trial is finished. His reasoning…
stcynic | June 14, 2006Michael Newdow's latest lawsuit, attempting to get "In God We Trust" taken off the money and prohibited as a national motto, was dismissed by a Federal district court judge yesterday. Access the full opinion here. Whatever one thinks of the merits of this particular case, I just can't get over my personal distaste for Newdow. The very fact that he actually calls himself "Rev. Dr. Michael Newdow" is enough to make me roll my eyes at the pretentiousness of it all.
The decision was actually a no-brainer for the district court. The same lawsuit has already been filed in the 9th circuit, a 1970…
stcynic | June 9, 2006In a 2004 Lancaster, Penn., speech reported in the local newspaper, the Lancaster New Era, Bush said to a group of Amish, "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job." (link)
Nothing will.