April 11, 2014 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Posted on April 11, 2014April 11, 2014 by JCPW

Around the Web This Week

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

At an international conference at the Vatican, Pope Francis denounced human trafficking as a crime against humanity
The Egyptian government has stepped up a campaign to curb Muslim Brotherhood influence over mosques by licensing more than 17,000 state-approved clerics to give Friday sermons
On Monday, an influential Dutch Jesuit priest was assassinated by masked gunmen in the Syrian city of Homs
Brandeis University has reversed a decision to grant an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has criticized Islam. The university stated that some of Hirsi Ali’s past statements are inconsistent with the university’s core values
The Supreme Court has denied certiorari in Elane Photography v. Willock, the case concerning a photography business that was compelled to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony pursuant to New Mexico’s public accommodations statute
Haredim continue to protest in Jerusalem after another Yeshiva student was arrested for dodging the draft
A Jihadist group in Libya says it plans to take over security in the eastern town of Derna and impose Islamic law
Over strong opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, the Philippines Supreme Court upheld a family planning law that allows public health centers to distribute contraceptives
On Wednesday, a Warsaw court rejected a prior ruling of an administrative court, thereby granting permission to The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster to register as a religion in Poland

Posted on April 11, 2014July 27, 2016 by JCPW

Junker-Kenny, “Religion and Public Reason”

This March, De Gruyter published Religion and Public Reason: A Comparison of the Positions of John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas and Paul Ricoeur by Maureen Junker-Kenny (Trinity College, Dublin). The publisher’s description follows.

This book compares three approaches to public reason and to the public space accorded to religions: the liberal platform of an overlapping consensus proposed by John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas’s discourse ethical reformulation of Kant’s universalism and its realization in the public sphere, and the co-founding role which Paul Ricoeur attributes to the particular traditions that have shaped their cultures and the convictions of citizens.

The premises of their positions are analysed under four aspects: (1) the normative framework which determines the specific function of public reason; (2) their anthropologies and theories of action; (3) the dimensions of social life and its concretization in a democratic political framework; (4) the different views of religion that follow from these factors, including their understanding of the status of metaphysical and religious truth claims, and the role of religion as a practice and conviction in a pluralist society. Recent receptions and critiques in English and German are brought into conversation: philosophers and theologians discuss the scope of public reason, and the task of translation from faith traditions, as well as the role they might have in the diversity of world cultures for shaping a shared cosmopolitan horizon.

Posted on April 11, 2014July 27, 2016 by JCPW

Johnson & Vanderbeck, “Law, Religion and Homosexuality”

This May, Routledge will publish Law, Religion and Homosexuality by Paul Johnson (University of York) and Robert Vanderbeck (University of Leeds). The publisher’s description follows.

Law, Religion and Homosexuality is the first book-length study of how religion has shaped, and continues to shape, legislation that regulates the lives of gay men and lesbians. Through a systematic examination of how religious discourse influences the making of law – in the form of official interventions made by faith communities and organizations, as well as by expressions of faith by individual legislators – the authors argue that religion continues to be central to both enabling and restricting the development of sexual orientation equality. Whilst some claim that faith has been marginalized in the legislative processes of contemporary western societies, Johnson and Vanderbeck show the significant impact of religion in a number of substantive legal areas relating to sexual orientation including: same-sex sexual relations, family life, civil partnership and same-sex marriage, equality in employment and the provision of goods and services, hate speech regulation, and education. Law, Religion and Homosexuality demonstrates the dynamic interplay between law and religion in respect of homosexuality and will be of considerable interest to a wide audience of academics, policy makers and stakeholders.