November 7, 2014 - LAW AND RELIGION FORUM

Posted on November 7, 2014 by

Around the Web This Week

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

The Supreme Court has denied a pair of appeals from the Episcopal Church in a dispute over church property claimed by a breakaway sect in Texas.
The Court also declined to hear an appeal filed by several New York City pregnancy centers who were challenging a law that forces crisis pregnancy centers to inform clients whether they have a licensed medical provider on staff.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court has put a hold on two laws restricting abortion pending the outcome of legal challenges.
Measures to curb or limit abortion rights were on the ballot in Tennessee, North Dakota and Colorado.
- Only Tennessee’s measure, Amendment 1, achieved the required votes. Amendment 1 clarifies that the right to an abortion is neither secured nor protected by the state’s constitution.
A federal district court in Oregon has held that humanism is a religion for Establishment Clause purposes. The holding comes in a case in which a prisoner wanted the prison to establish a Humanist study group.
An increasing number of church leaders are endorsing candidates from the pulpit this year. While critics argue that the churches’ status as tax-exempt organizations under IRS regulations prohibits them from endorsing candidates, church leaders argue that these regulations may infringe on their First Amendment rights.
The Canadian Conservative Party is proposing changes to that country’s immigration laws. Those practicing polygamy would no longer be allowed to immigrate to Canada, and immigrants found to be polygamists would be deported.
- Opinion: Eugene Volokh discusses the status of polygamous foreign marriages under American Law.
The British Parliament has voted 181-1 in favor of a bill banning sex-selective abortions. Should the bill become law, it will be the first law to clarify and tighten abortion law since 1990.
Belgium’s highest administrative court has invalidated school regulations banning students from wearing religious headwear or other religious insignia.
In a video message discussing the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, the Prince of Wales has stated that Britain’s “future as a free society” depends on recognising the “crucial role” played by people of faith.
In a draft law aimed at tackling religious extremism, Austria has called for a standard German-language translation of the Koran and moved to prohibit foreign funding of Muslim organizations on its soil.
- Opinion: Jennifer Bryson of the Witherspoon Institute argues that the proposed Austrian legislation reflects ignorance about Islam and expands governmental power at the expense of religion.

Posted on November 7, 2014July 27, 2016 by

Rosati, “The Making of a Postsecular Society”

In January, Ashgate Publishing will release “The Making of a Postsecular Society: A Durkheimian Approach to Memory, Pluralism and Religion in Turkey” by Massimo Rosati (University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’). The publisher’s description follows:

Drawing on the thought of Durkheim, this volume focuses on societal changes at the symbolic level to develop a new conceptualisation of the emergence of postsecular societies. Neo-Durkheimian categories are applied to the case of Turkey, which in recent years has shifted from a strong Republican and Kemalist view of secularism to a more Anglo-Saxon perspective. Turkish society thus constitutes an interesting case that blurs modernist distinctions between the secular and the religious and which could be described as ‘postsecular’.

Presenting three symbolic case studies – the enduring image of the founder of the Republic Atatürk, the contested site of Ayasofia, and the remembering and commemoration of the murdered journalist Hrant Dink – The Making of a Postsecular Society analyses the cultural relationship that the modern Republic has always had with Europe, considering the possible implications of the Turkish model of secularism for a specifically European self-understanding of modernity.

Based on a rigorous construction of theoretical categories and on a close scrutiny of the common challenges confronting Europe and its Turkish neighbour long considered ‘other’ with regard to the accommodation of religious difference, this book sheds light on the possibilities for Europe to find new ways of arranging the relationship between the secular and the religious. As such, it will appeal to scholars of social theory, the sociology of religion, secularisation and religious difference, and social change.

Posted on November 7, 2014July 27, 2016 by

Winer & Crimm, “God, Schools, and Government Funding: First Amendment Conundrums”

In January, Ashgate Publishing will release “God, Schools, and Government Funding: First Amendment Conundrums” by Laurence H. Winer, (Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University) and Nina J. Crimm (St. John’s University School of Law). The publisher’s description follows:

In recent years, a conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, over vigorous dissents, has developed circumventions to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment that allow state legislatures unabashedly to use public tax dollars increasingly to aid private elementary and secondary education. This expansive and innovative legislation provides considerable governmental funds to support parochial schools and other religiously-affiliated education providers. That political response to the perceived declining quality of traditional public schools and the vigorous school choice movement for alternative educational opportunities provokes passionate constitutional controversy. Yet, the Court’s recent decision in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn inappropriately denies taxpayers recourse to challenge these proliferating tax funding schemes in federal courts. Professors Winer and Crimm clearly elucidate the complex and controversial policy, legal, and constitutional issues involved in using tax expenditures – mechanisms such as exclusions, deductions, and credits that economically function as government subsidies – to finance private, religious schooling. The authors argue that legislatures must take great care in structuring such programs and set forth various proposals to ameliorate the highly troubling dissention and divisiveness generated by state aid for religious education.