Posted on by L&R Forum

Around the Web

Here are some important law-and-religion news stories from around the web:

  • The 9th Circuit rejected claims that a fire department in Washington State violated Title VII and state law when they refused to accommodate employees’ request for religious exemptions from the state’s Covid vaccine mandate for all healthcare providers.
  • The 6th Circuit affirmed the dismissal of claims that an Ohio school’s policy on the use of communal bathrooms by transgender students violated the free exercise rights of Muslim and Christian students and parents.
  • Two families field suit in a Massachusetts federal district court challenging a policy of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families that would require foster parents to agree to “support, respect, and affirm the foster child’s sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.” The families assert that the policy unconstitutionally forces them to “speak against their core religious beliefs,” regulates speech based on content and viewpoint, and is discriminatory towards religious persons.
  • A California federal district court granted summary judgment to a Jehovah’s Witness who wished to attach an Addendum to the oath she was required to take as an employee of the State Controller’s Office, as she believed the oath, as currently written, violated her religious beliefs.
  • A New Mexico federal district court held that two members of a healthcare sharing ministry have standing to challenge an order barring them from operating in the state on free exercise grounds.
  • Senate Bill 11, passed by the Texas legislature in May 2025, establishes a structure that school districts may adopt to provide a daily prayer service and reading of the Bible/other religious text in school with parental consent. The bill took effect on September 1st, and Texas AG Ken Paxton promptly issued a press release in which he “encourages children to begin with the Lord’s Prayer[.]”
  • Following the tragic shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Jason Adkins, the executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, appeared on “EWTN News In Depth,” where he called out state lawmakers for ignoring the pleas of Minnesota Catholic leaders for security funding for local nonpublic schools.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Shils on Text as Tradition

In preparation (maybe pre-preparation is more accurate) for a new large project, I am re-reading and enjoying the sociologist Edward Shils’s short masterpiece, Tradition. In an early part of the book, he says the following about “texts” which I thought relevant to several issues in law (particularly, but not only, constitutional law):

From the standpoint which I take here both declaration and interpretation are traditions. The physical artifacts–manuscripts–are traditions. The sacred text itself is a tradition. The “tradition” is accumulated understanding of the text; the text would be only a physical object without interpretation. The sacredness of the text sets it apart, but it would make no sense without an interpretation; yet the interpretation which makes it what it is, is regarded as different from the text. The works of literary figures like Homer, Virgil, Shakespeare, and Dante are placed in a somewhat similar situation; large bodies of interpretation form around them. The manuscripts and printed books in which the text is recorded, the text and the interpretations of it are all tradita.