Last Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, involving a dispute between Catholic Social Services of Philadelphia, a foster-care placement agency, and the City of Philadelphia with respect to the former’s request for a religious accommodation from a local nondiscrimination provision in carrying out foster care placement. In this podcast, Mark and I discuss the major themes that emerged in the argument and offer a few predictions about the result and reasoning the Court might adopt. Listen in!
What are the primary sources of American notions of toleration: the Enlightenment or early Christianity? And why do so many see cultural parallels between America today and late imperial Rome? In our latest podcast, we chat with Professor Jed Atkins, a professor of classics at Duke University about these and other questions related to the nature and value of religious toleration, including its relationship to the virtue of justice. Professor Atkins’s presented a paper on Tertullian (as well as Augustine, St. Paul, and others) for our Colloquium in Law and Religion. Listen in as we broaden the lens to discuss these more general themes of cultural and legal significance today.
In this episode, recorded especially for our 1Ls at St. John’s (and law students everywhere!), we explore legal themes in the classic film about Thomas More, “A Man for All Seasons” (1966). How far can law protect an individual from state and social coercion? And to what extent must a lawyer submerge his or her own views in representing a client? Listen in!
In this podcast, we discuss the end of the Supreme Court’s term, which included a number of important cases related to law and religion–Bostock, Espinoza, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Little Sisters of the Poor. We take a big picture, thematic approach to these cases, talk about who won and who lost, and speculate about what these and future cases mean for the ongoing conflicts between what we call “Progressives” and the “Traditionally Religious.” Listen in!
In this followup to Episode 22, we discuss new developments in litigation over government orders to close churches during the COVID-19 epidemic, including a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. We ask whether local authorities continue to merit judicial deference and whether courts should decide what sort of worship services should satisfy believers. Listen in!
Kelsey Dallas, the national religion reporter for the Deseret News, is one of the best religion journalists writing today: thorough, fair, and insightful. In this episode, she joins us to explains why, after getting a graduate degree in religion from Yale, she left academics to become a reporter, and why she finds American religion so fascinating. Along the way, we discuss how the COVID-19 epidemic is affecting churches, what stories she’s watching for future articles, and the never-ending Contraceptive Mandate litigation. Listen in!
In response to the COVID-19 epidemic, many state and local governments have banned “non-essential” gatherings of more than 10 people, including religious services. In this episode of Legal Spirits, Center Co-Directors Marc DeGirolami and Mark Movsesian discuss several recent cases, like one involving the On Fire Christian Church in Louisville Kentucky, in which (mostly Evangelical) churches have challenged these bans as violations of religious freedom. How likely are such challenges to succeed? And why are Evangelicals, as opposed to Catholics and Orthodox, the Christians challenging these bans? Listen in!
The Little Sisters of the Poor are litigants before the Supreme Court once more, this time as intervening defendants in an action by Pennsylvania and New Jersey against the federal government. The factual issue is a set of regulations adopted by the federal government that fully exempt organizations like the Little Sisters from the “contraception mandate”–an extremely controversial feature of the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act that has been litigated for what will shortly be a decade. The case is Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v. Pennsylvania, and it implicates complicated questions about religious freedom.
In this podcast, we are absolutely delighted to be joined by our first guest on Legal Spirits, Professor Kevin Walsh of the University of Richmond Law School, who has represented the Little Sisters before and has a keen understanding of the many intricacies of this important case. We recapitulate the history of this case, discuss the decisions below, and talk about the claims before the Supreme Court. We focus on the question of standing and the broader issue of the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and how this case might affect it. Listen in!
The Supreme Court has granted cert. on a potentially major case for the scope of the Free Exercise Clause and the relationship between rights of religious liberty and rights of LGBT persons. The case is Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, and it concerns Catholic Social Services, a foster agency and part of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which was prevented by the City from making new foster care placements because CSS objected on religious grounds to placing children in homes with unmarried heterosexual couples as well as same-sex couples.
In this episode, Mark and Marc present the facts of the case, discuss the legal claims in the petition for cert., and explore some of the larger and possibly very significant implications of this case for the future of constitutional free exercise. Listen in!
Late last month, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Espinoza v. Montana Dep’t of Revenue, a case on the constitutionality of a Montana school-choice program that allows parents to direct state-funded scholarships to religiously affiliated schools. The Montana Supreme Court ruled that the program violated the state constitution’s “Blaine Amendment,” which prohibits the appropriation of public money for “sectarian” institutions, including private, religiously affiliated schools. Petitioners argue that barring them from scholarships, simply because they plan to use the money at religiously affiliated schools, violates the Free Exercise Clause of the federal constitution.
In this episode, we review the facts of Espinoza and analyze last month’s oral argument. What concerns did the Justices raise and how did counsel respond? We also speculate what the Justices’ questions suggest about the ultimate outcome of the case. Listen in!
