Some interesting law and religion news stories from around the web this week:
- Burma’s parliament approved a religious conversion bill, which is being criticized for blocking individual choices and imposing bureaucratic hurdles on those wishing to change their religion.
- As the Islamic State increases its deliberate demolition and looting in Syria, destruction of antiquities has reached staggering levels that represent an irreversible loss to world heritage and future scholarship, according to archaeological experts and antiquities officials.
- Followers of Jainism petitioned the Indian Supreme Court to legalize the tradition of santhara after lower court banned the ritual as ‘assisted suicide.’
- A Pakistani court upheld the death sentence of a gardener who beheaded a prison doctor whom he claimed had insulted his religion.
- After being threatened with litigation, a Catholic-run hospital in California approved a sterilization procedure that it had initially denied on religious grounds.
- Facebook has locked priests out of their personal pages for listing their clerical titles as part of their names, prompting debate about the company’s policy on self-identification.
- An Iowa federal district court rejected Establishment Clause and Free Exercise challenges to a 92-count indictment charging companies and individuals with making false statements on export certificates and on a website regarding Halal-slaughter of meat being exported.
- The 6th Circuit denied a request from a Kentucky court clerk to stay a federal injunction that called on her to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
- India’s Hindus have dropped below 80 percent of the population for the first time since independence, as the Muslim population rises.
- Christian spokesperson says Christians in Pakistan who were affected by flooding this summer are being forced to convert to Islam or become slaves, or else they cannot receive help from the government.