Some interesting law and religion news stories from around the web this week:
- As Europe grapples with the biggest wave of migration since World War II, the fates of those crossing the Mediterranean are increasingly being determined by class systems based on money, ethnicity and religion.
- A restaurant owner in Trenton, NJ, who sells fruit smoothies and vegan cupcakes, says that marijuana is smoked for religious reasons at the spiritual sanctuary he opened.
- In Illinois, families with religious objections to immunizing their children will soon have an additional hurdle to clear if they want to enroll students in public or private schools.
- France has been grappling with how to reconcile religious beliefs with secular values when it comes to pork in school lunches. One lawmaker’s solution: vegetarian meals.
- A conservative Christian legal group is coming to the defense of 17 police departments that drew fire from an atheist group for displaying “In God We Trust” decals on agency vehicles.
- The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has filed an employment-discrimination complaint over the Columbus Police Division’s refusal to allow female officers to wear head scarves.
- 25 American public universities have been asked by the Freedom From Religion Foundation to drop their college football chaplains.
- Slovakia has agreed to accept refugees as part of a European plan to resettle people who have fled from wars and poverty in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, but its government has stated that it would prefer to accept Christian refugees.
- In light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling regarding same-sex marriage, many religious conservatives are questioning whether those with deeply held religious beliefs, including public officials, should be compelled to participate in public duties anathema to their faiths. Some are compelled to seek a compromise.
- On Thursday, Myanmar’s parliament passed two bills regulating religious conversion and polygamy, which activists fear will curb religious freedoms.
- Differences in beliefs among Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Jews with regards to the terms on which newcomers are received into the faith is a hotly contested political issue in Israel, with implications for the way Israel functions and understands itself as a state.