February 7, 2014 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Posted on February 7, 2014July 27, 2016 by JCPW

Around the Web This Week

Some interesting law & religion stories from around the web this week:

At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Obama told political leaders that religious freedom is important to national security and a central tenet of U.S. diplomacy
Following a Supreme Court ruling which ordered funding halted to seminaries whose students are exempt from the draft, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews have blocked highways across Israel in protest
An English court summoned the head of the Mormon church to answer charges that Mormon religious claims are fraud
More than 100,000 marched through Paris and Lyon to protest France’s legalization of same-sex marriage and to show their support for traditional family and educational values
The Vatican responded to a UN human rights committee’s report criticizing the Vatican for its response to the child sex abuse crisis and its attitudes toward homosexuality, contraception, and abortion.
MSPs in Scotland voted by 105 to 18 in favor of the Marriage and Civil Partnership Bill, which will allow same-sex marriages
In Spain, thousands of demonstrators marched on parliament to protest a draft law that would ban abortion except in cases of rape and when the mother’s health is at serious risk
A Roman Catholic middle school fired an unmarried, pregnant teacher for violating the terms of her contract
A former Children’s Hospital Boston employee claims she was fired because her Islamic beliefs prohibited her from getting a mandatory flu shot and is suing the hospital
The New York Times editorial board thinks that allowing employers to be exempt from the ACA’s contraceptives mandate would violate the Establishment Clause
Happy Tenth Anniversary to Mirror of Justice!

Posted on February 7, 2014July 27, 2016 by JCPW

Elver, “The Headscarf Controversy”

Next month, Oxford University Press will publish The Headscarf Controversy: Secularism and Freedom of Religion by Hilal Elver (University of California Santa Barbara). The publisher’s description follows.

Hilal Elver offers an in-depth study of the escalating controversy over the right of Muslim women to wear headscarves. Examining legal and political debates in Turkey, several European countries including France and Germany, and the United States, Elver shows the troubling exclusion of pious Muslim women from the public sphere in the name of secularism, democracy, liberalism, and women’s rights.

After evaluating political actions and court decisions from the national level of individual governments to the international sphere of the European Court of Human Rights, Elver concludes that judges and legislators are increasingly influenced by social pressures concerning immigration and multiculturalism, and by issues such as Islamophobia, the “war on terror,” and security concerns. She shows how these influences have resulted in a failure on the part of many Western governments to recognize and protect essential individual freedoms.

Employing a critical legal theory perspective to the headscarf controversy, Elver argues that law can be used to change underlying social conditions shaping the role of religion, and also the position of women in modern society. The Headscarf Controversy demonstrates how changes in law across nations can be used to restore state commitments to human rights.

Posted on February 7, 2014July 27, 2016 by JCPW

Shogimen & Spencer (eds.), “Visions of Peace: Asia and the West”

This month, Ashgate published Visions of Peace: Asia and the West edited by Takashi Shogimen (University of Otago) and Vicki A. Spencer (University of Otago). The publisher’s description follows.

Visions of Peace: Asia and the West explores the diversity of past conceptualizations as well as the remarkable continuity in the hope for peace across global intellectual traditions. Current literature, prompted by September 11, predominantly focuses on the laws and ethics of just wars or modern ideals of peace. Asian and Western ideals of peace before the modern era have largely escaped scholarly attention. This book examines Western and Asian visions of peace that existed prior to c.1800 by bringing together experts from a variety of intellectual traditions.

The historical survey ranges from ancient Greek thought, early Christianity and medieval scholasticism to Hinduism, classical Confucianism and Tokuguwa Japanese learning, before illuminating unfamiliar aspects of peace visions in the European Enlightenment. Each chapter offers a particular case study and attempts to rehabilitate a ‘forgotten’ conception of peace and reclaim its contemporary relevance. Collectively they provide the conceptual resources to inspire more creative thinking towards a new vision of peace in the present. Students and specialists in international relations, peace studies, history, political theory, philosophy, and religious studies will find this book a valuable resource on diverse conceptions of peace.