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

• As part of a plan to increase the participation of private religious schools in New York City’s pre-kindergarten program, Mayor Bill de Blasio has proposed a plan that would allow for religious instruction and prayers during midday breaks.  Opponents say the plan violates the separation of church and state.
• Legislators in Missouri have introduced two bills that seek to protect the speech and association rights of student religious organizations. Under the proposed bills, student faith groups would be exempt from campus discrimination rules.
• As Facebook updates its “Community Standards,” Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, pointed to defamation laws as emblematic of the “different legal and cultural environments” in which Facebook operates.
  • CLR’s Take:  Mark Movsesian notes that the tension between defamation laws and the policies of companies such as Facebook may be a symptom of the ‘clash of civilizations.’
• The Navajo Nation has reached out to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in an effort to protect its sacred San Francisco Peaks from being used by the Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort.
• The Arizona Supreme Court’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee has issued an opinion stating that a judge who chooses to perform marriages must perform all marriages, even if the judge is opposed to the concept of same-sex marriage.
• The official seal of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania has come under criticism from the “Freedom From Religion Foundation” due to the Latin cross inscribed in the center of the seal. 
• Two US Senators introduced resolutions of disapproval that would overturn D.C. Council legislation opponents criticize as infringing on the religious freedom of religious universities.
• Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California has become the first accredited Muslim college in the United States.
• A provision of Tennessee’s Constitution barring atheists from public office has come under fire from atheist groups. The groups argue this provision is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s decision in Torcaso v. Watkins.
• The Supreme Court of Canada has held that Quebec’s Education Department violated the religious freedom of a Catholic high school when it failed to grant the school an exemption from teaching the government mandated “Ethics and Religious Culture” course.
• French legislators have passed a bill that would allow doctors to put terminally ill patients into a ‘deep sleep’ until they die. Representatives of France’s religious communities have said they will seek to repeal the bill.