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Alidadi, Foblets & Vrielink, “A Test of Faith?”

This August, Ashgate Publishing published A Test of Faith?: Religious Diversity and Accommodation in the European Workplace edited by Katayoun Alidadi, Marie-Claire Foblets, and Jogchum Vrielink (all at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium). The publisher’s description follows.

Issues of religious diversity in the workplace have become very topical and have been raised before domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights. Examining the controversial and constantly evolving position of religion in the workplace, this collection brings together chapters by legal and social science scholars and provides a wealth of information on legal responses across Europe, Turkey and the United States to conflicts between professional and religious obligations involving employees and employers.

The contributors examine how case law from the European Court of Human Rights, domestic experiences and comparative analyses can indicate trends and reveal established and innovative approaches. This multi-perspective volume will be relevant for legal practitioners, researchers, academics and policy-makers interested in human rights law, discrimination law, labour law and the intersection of law and religion.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Conference: “Islamic Law, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Affordable Care Act”

The Becket Fund will host a conference, “Islamic Law, Same-Sex Marriage, and the Affordable Care Act” in Washington, DC, on Thursday, September 13. For details, click here.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Bradley (ed.), “Challenges to Religious Liberty in the Twenty-First Century”

Here is a terrific collection of essays edited by Gerard V. Bradley (Notre Dame), Challenges to Religious Liberty in the Twenty-First Century (CUP 2012).  The contributors are CLR Forum guest Steve Smith and our friend Rick Garnett, as well as José Casanova, Tom Farr, Daniel Philpott, Christopher Tollefsen, William Inboden, Professor Bradley, and my old mentor and dear friend, Kent Greenawalt.  The publisher’s description follows.

Almost everyone today affirms the importance and merit of religious liberty. But religious liberty is being challenged by new questions (for example, use of the niqab or church adoption services for same-sex couples) and new forces (such as globalization and Islamism). Combined, these make the meaning of religious liberty in the twenty-first century uncertain. This collection of essays by ten of the world’s leading scholars on religious liberty takes aim at these issues. The book is arranged around five specific challenges to religious liberty today: the state’s responsibility to prevent coercion and intimidation of believers by others within the same faith community; the U.S.’s basic moral responsibilities to promote religious liberty abroad; how to understand and apply the traditional right of conscientious objection in today’s circumstances; the distinctive problems presented by globalization; and the viability today of an ‘originalist’ interpretation of the First Amendment religion clauses.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 2 Comments

Funny, They Never Thought of That

Something’s definitely going on in Europe. When a German court ruled recently that a doctor who performed a circumcision on a male child for religious reasons could be criminally liable, most Americans thought the ruling was an aberration. But then, as my colleague Marc writes,  it turned out that that certain hospitals in Austria and Switzerland had suspended the practice out of a concern for criminal liability. Now, according to a story in Haaretz, Norway’s children’s-rights ombudsperson, Dr. Anne Lindboe, has helpfully proposed that Jews and Muslims in her country replace circumcision with a nonsurgical, symbolic alternative. Circumcising infant boys — at eight days, for Jews, and around seven years, typically, for Muslims — violates their rights, Dr. Lindboe argues, and causes unnecessary pain. Dr. Lindboe did not herself attempt to devise a new ritual for Jews and Muslims; she doubtless believed that respect for religious freedom counseled letting them come up with their own alternatives. At least for now. (H/T: Religion Clause).

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Patel, “Sacred Ground”

From Random House this month, a new book on anti-Muslim prejudice in the United States, Eboo Patel, Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America (2012). The publisher’s description follows.

In the decade following the attacks of 9/11, suspicion and animosity toward American Muslims has increased rather than subsided. Alarmist, hateful rhetoric once relegated to the fringes of political discourse has now become frighteningly mainstream, with pundits and politicians routinely invoking the specter of Islam as a menacing, deeply anti-American force.

In Sacred Ground, author and renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel says this prejudice is not just a problem for Muslims but a challenge to the very idea of America. Patel shows us that Americans from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr. have been “interfaith leaders,” illustrating how the forces of pluralism in America have time and again defeated the forces of Read more

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 1 Comment

Religious Freedom: How Others See Us

Before everyone starts emailing, let me quickly say that the state of religious freedom in America is qualitatively better than in many, many other countries.  And I am not in any way equating the HHS Contraception Mandate with the sort of religious persecution that exists routinely elsewhere. (The US does not imprison and abuse people for conducting prayer meetings, for example). Given the US’s habit of issuing annual reports that condemn threats to religious freedom in other countries, though, it might be helpful at least to read what outside observers say about us. Here are two statements, one an editorial on a Russian Orthodox Church website, and the other a public letter from the Vatican, arguing that the US has its own religious freedom issues to address. Of the two, the Vatican’s is better done — the Russian veers into anti-American agitprop — though even the Vatican’s letter is itself a little vague, speaking only of “concerted efforts … to redefine and restrict the exercise of the right to religious freedom,” and ” the unprecedented gravity of … new threats to the Church’s liberty and public moral witness” in America. The implication is clear, though. The Mandate may be compromising the credibility of the US’s voice on religious freedom around the world.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Saudi Arabia Detains, Deports 35 Ethiopian Christians for Praying

It’s astonishing this story has not received greater coverage in the media. The Jerusalem Post reports that Saudi Arabia has deported 35 Ethiopian Christians, after detaining them in allegedly brutal conditions for seven months, for conducting a private prayer meeting last Christmas. The Ethiopians, who had been working in Jeddah, were arrested in a raid on December 15 and, according to human rights organizations, subjected to beatings, sexual assaults, and attempts to force them to convert to Islam. The Saudi government never formally charged them with a crime, though it did suggest at one point it was holding the detainees on the charge of illicit mingling with the opposite sex. In February, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom had called on Saudi Arabia to release the Ethiopians.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Memo to the Times Editorial Board: Read the Case

On Tuesday, the New York Times ran an editorial criticizing U.S. District Judge John Kane’s decision in one of the HHS Contraception Mandate cases, Newland v. Sebelius. Judge Kane issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the mandate against a corporation, Hercules Industries. The Times believes this ruling misreads the Constitution:

There is no constitutional precedent for individuals, much less corporations, allowing them to violate generally applicable laws because they may have a religious objection. Conversely, the company’s claim that its owners or officers have a First Amendment right to impose their personal religious beliefs on the corporation’s employees is groundless. The health insurance mandate does not place a substantial burden on religious exercise, so a federal statute protecting such exercise should not be in play.

Some of this critique is wrong, some is sloppy, and some is debatable.  But the key problem is that the critique is entirely inapposite. As my colleague Marc explained last week, Judge Kane expressly declined to address the corporation’s constitutional claims. He based his ruling solely on plaintiff’s RFRA argument. If you’re going to criticize a judicial opinion, you really should read it first.  (H/t: John McGinnis)

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

State Department’s Religious Freedom Report: All Hat, No Cattle?

Georgetown’s Thomas Farr assesses the latest State Department Annual Report on International Religious Freedom, issued in Washington this week with much fanfare by Secretary Hillary Clinton and Ambassador-at-Large Suzan Johnson Cook. The report, Farr says, lives up to its reputation as “the gold standard” in the field and will, as always, be helpful to scholars, the media, and policy experts. But, Farr continues, there’s also some “bad news”:

Johnson Cook has little authority, few resources, and a bureaucracy that is — notwithstanding the secretary’s fine words — largely indifferent to the advancement of international religious freedom. Unlike other ambassadors-at-large (Global Women’s Issues, Global AIDS), Johnson Cook does not report to the Secretary, but is several levels removed from Clinton. The IRF ambassador controls virtually no resources for IRF programs, and is not present in senior policy meetings involving those countries or any others. A quick look at the “U.S. Policy” sections of the reports will tell you that we have little in the way of a coordinated IRF strategy for any of these countries. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that this issue is not a priority for this administration, except perhaps for the speechwriters (who are doing an outstanding job).

Read Farr’s complete assessment here.

Posted on by Mark Movsesian · 14 Comments

Chick-fil-A and the Coming Clash

That was fast. Last week, Mayor Thomas Menino announced that, because of COO Dan Cathy’s comments in favor of traditional marriage, Boston would not allow Chick-fil-A to open any restaurants in that city. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel followed with similar statements. “Chick-fil-A values are not Chicago values,” he declared. The response from commentators on both the left and right was uniform and swift. Government cannot deny licenses because businesses express political opinions with which government disagrees: that’s what the Free Speech Clause is about. By this week, Menino had backed down, and New York’s Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a supporter of same-sex marriage, had distanced his city from the anti-Chick-fil-A campaign. The crusade to shut down Chick-fil-A seems to have ended, at least for now.

Consumers have every right to organize a boycott because they disapprove of what a firm’s COO has to say. Such boycotts typically fail, however, because of collective action problems. It’s hard to organize these things; most consumers simply don’t care enough about politics to have it drive their purchasing decisions. In the 1990s, conservatives failed when they tried to boycott Disney because of its support for gay rights, and liberals failed when they tried to Read more