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

  • The Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans secured near unanimous approval for a $230 million bankruptcy settlement. The settlement payout breaks down to $130 million in cash from the archdiocese and its affiliates, $20 million in promissory notes, $30 million from insurers, and up to $50 million from the sale of various property owned by the archdiocese.
  • A federal district court in California dismissed a Title VII religious discrimination claim by a DMV worker who objected to a Covid vaccine. The court held that the worker’s vague statements about bodily autonomy and God did not amount to a religious conviction.
  • A Texas state appeals court affirmed the dismissal of United Methodist Rio Conference Board of Trustees v. Alice First Methodist Church. This suit was brought by the United Methodist Church parent body in an effort to challenge attempts bylocal Texas congregations to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church. The Court held that dismissal was proper under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, which precludes courts from interpreting religious documents that dictate church governance.
  • The Texas Supreme Court added a new Comment to Canon 4 of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct which would allow judges to abstain from performing same-sex marriages because of their sincerely held religious beliefs.
  • A new report from Barna Group shows that Gen Z and Millennial Christians are not only attending church more frequently than in previous years but are also attending more often than Christians of older generations.
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Around the Web

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

  • In United States v. Harris, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals deliberated on whether a defendant, charged with threatening a federal judge and declared incompetent for trial, could be involuntarily medicated despite his religious objections as a Jehovah’s Witness. The court recognized the importance of religious liberty in this context, concluding that it could be considered a “special circumstance” in deciding the permissibility of involuntary medication, according to Supreme Court precedent in Sell v. United States.
  • In Foshee v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, a Maryland federal court dismissed a religious discrimination claim under Title VII by two employees seeking a religious exemption from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The court found that their objections, based on what plaintiffs assert was guidance from God or the Holy Spirit and personal concerns about the vaccine, were not strictly religious but intertwined with secular reasons, thus not qualifying for a religious exemption. The court emphasized that their beliefs, being “not subject to any principled limitation in…scope,” amounted to an unverifiable “blanket privilege” not strictly religious in nature.
  • In Hilsenrath v. School District of the Chathams, a New Jersey court reaffirmed its prior decision stating that a 7th grade curriculum on Islam did not violate the Establishment Clause. The court, after a reconsideration prompted by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, emphasized that the educational materials were not coercively promoting religious establishments forbidden by the First Amendment, leading to a ruling in favor of the school board.
  • In Gospel Light Mennonite Church Medical Aid Plan v. New Mexico Office of the Superintendent of Insurance, a New Mexico federal district court declined to order an injunction that would prevent the state’s insurance superintendent from regulating Health Care Sharing Ministries (HCSMs), cost-sharing organizations intended to cut medical expenses for members. The plaintiffs argued that an official press release, which warned consumers about HCSMs and declared their plans unauthorized insurance products, showed a form of official disapproval of their religious beliefs. However, the court disagreed, and using rational basis review, found that state laws requiring compliance with the Insurance Code were justified and evinced a legitimate governmental concern.
  • In The Matter of James Hogue v. Board of Education of the City School District of the City of New York, the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division upheld the denial of Hogue’s request for a religious exemption from the COVID-19 vaccination mandate for New York City Department of Education employees. It ruled that Hogue failed to prove his objection was based on sincere religious beliefs and that granting an exemption would impose undue hardship on the Department of Education. The court dismissed Hogue’s other arguments, including a lack of cooperative dialogue and issues of timeliness in the appeal process.
  • In Supriyo @ Supriya Chakraborty v. Union of India, India’s Supreme Court declined to recognize same-sex marriages, aligning with government and religious leaders who opposed the petitions. The Court concurred that the power to legislate on marriage resides with the parliament, not the judiciary. The petitioners had advocated for the modification of the Special Marriage Act to be more inclusive by using the term “spouse” instead of specifying gender. Despite refusing to legalize same-sex marriages, the Court did urge the government to explore and implement extended rights and privileges for same-sex couples, suggesting the formation of a committee to examine this prospect.
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Around the Web

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

  • The 4th Circuit heard oral argument in Billard v. Charlotte Catholic High School to determine whether a Catholic high school violated Title VII by firing a drama teacher for entering a same-sex marriage. While the district court sided with the teacher, during the appeal, judges inquired about the ministerial exception doctrine, even though the school had not raised it as a defense.
  • In Gardner-Alfred v. Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a New York federal district court dismissed claims by two FRB employees who were denied religious exemptions from the bank’s COVID vaccine mandate. The court concluded neither employee showed objections based on sincere religious beliefs. The court noted one employee’s ties to the Temple of Healing Spirit seemed only to seek a vaccination exemption and another’s actions and associations were inconsistent with her claimed religious views.
  • In Huck v. United States, a Utah federal court dismissed challenges to Congress’ 2019 designation of public lands in Utah as wilderness areas, resulting in stricter usage rules like motor vehicle bans. Plaintiffs claimed the designation favored Earth-religions and their views on the ‘sacredness’ of lands, violating the Establishment Clause. The court emphasized historical precedent supporting federal authority over land designations and did not find evidence of religious coercion or bias against specific groups.
  • In Kloosterman v. Metropolitan Hospital, a Michigan federal district court declined to dismiss a physician assistant’s religious discrimination claims against a hospital that fired her for not referring gender transitioning patients based on religious beliefs. The plaintiff, citing Christian beliefs, argued that she was against “eras[ing] or alter[ing] one’s sex.” The court found she plausibly argued that her termination was due to religious beliefs but dismissed her free speech claim.
  • Suit was filed in Rooks v. Peoria Unified School District against the Arizona school board to defend a plaintiff’s use of Scripture during Board meeting comments. Legal counsel to the Board deemed the practice a violation of the Establishment Clause.
  • Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the government to clarify its inaction against Jerusalem’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar over derogatory remarks about Reform Judaism, the LGBTQ community, and the Women of the Wall Movement. Amar attributed earthquakes to the LGBTQ community and labeled Reform Jews as “evil people.” The petitioners claim they’ve sought government action 16 times in four years without response.
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Around the Web

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

  • In Mahmoud v. McKnight, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland refused to allow parents to opt their public-school children out of classroom reading and discussion of books with LGBTQ themes because the books’ messages violate the parents’ sincerely held religious beliefs. 
  • In Country Mill Farms, LLC v. City of East Lansing, the Eastern District of Michigan held that the city violated the Free Exercise rights of Country Mill Farms when the city refused to invite Country Mill to be a vendor at East Lansing’s Farmer’s Market because Country Mill violated the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance by refusing, for religious reasons, to rent its farm out for same-sex weddings. The court held that the discrimination ban was not generally applicable because exemptions in the ordinance allow the city to do business with firms that discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. 
  • In Satz v. Satz, a New Jersey state appellate court upheld a trial court’s order to enforce a marital settlement agreement that the parties entered into in connection with their divorce proceedings. One provision in the agreement obligated the parties to comply with recommendations of a Jewish religious court (beis din) that required the husband to give a get (Jewish bill of divorce) to the wife. The husband’s argument that the trial court’s enforcement of the agreement violated the Establishment Clause was rejected by the appellate court.
  • In Deutsche Evangelisch Lutherische Zions Gemeinde v. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a New York state trial court dismissed a suit brought by a German Lutheran church in Brooklyn that claims it broke away from its parent bodies because of the parent bodies’ stance accepting same-sex marriage and ordination of gay clergy. The church asked the court to determine that its membership with the parent bodies was terminated and that the parent bodies could not take control of their church property.
  • In a press release, the Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco announced that it has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Reorganization in order to resolve over 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse brought under California Assembly Bill 218, which re-opened the statute of limitations for sexual abuse claims that would otherwise be time barred.
  • The UN Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting to address the worsening situation–and burgeoning humanitarian crisis–in the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. In the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azerbaijan took control of the only road leading to Armenia, which has created unlivable conditions in the region, leaving the Armenian Christian population without food and medicine.
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Around the Web

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

  • The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in two cases (Faith Bible Chapel International v. Tucker and Synod of Bishops v. Belya) holding that interlocutory appeals from denials of a ministerial exception defense are not allowed.
  • In Donovan v. Vance, the 9th Circuit held that Department of Energy employees who objected to the government’s Covid vaccine mandate on religious grounds could not seek damages because the Executive Orders at issue had been revoked. Plaintiffs had sued federal officials in their official capacity, but the court held further that the United States has not waived sovereign immunity for damages under RFRA.
  • In United States v. Grenon, the Southern District of Florida ruled that the government could not preclude defendants from offering evidence of free exercise and RFRA defenses in their trial for manufacturing, marketing and distributing an unlicensed drug. The defendants are members of a church called Genesis II Church of Health and Healing, and they “promoted MMS [the drug] as a miracle cure to various illnesses and ailments,” which, when ingested, becomes chlorine dioxide.
  •  In McMahon v. World Vision Inc., the Western District of Washington dismissed a Title VII sex discrimination suit as barred by the Church Autonomy Doctrine.  A Christian ministry offered a job to the plaintiff, but rescinded the offer when the defendant learned that plaintiff was in a same-sex marriage. The court concluded that the Church Autonomy Doctrine may be invoked when a non-ministerial employee brings a Title VII action.
  •  In Micah’s Way v. City of Santa Ana, the Central District of California refused to dismiss a suit by a center that aids impoverished and disabled individuals in which it claimed that the city had violated its rights under RLUIPA and the First Amendment by refusing to issue it a Certificate of Occupancy unless it agrees to stop providing food and beverages to its clients. The court held that Micah’s Way plausibly alleged that its food distribution activities are a “religious exercise” and that the city substantially burdened that religious exercise.
  •  In The Catholic Bookstore, Inc. v. City of Jacksonville, the Middle District of Florida found that a Catholic bookstore has standing to challenge Jacksonville’s Human Rights Ordinance, which provides that it is unlawful to publish, circulate or display any communication indicating that service will be denied, or that patronage is unwelcome from a person, because of sexual orientation or gender identity. The bookstore wants to publicize its policy requiring its staff to address co-workers and customers only by “pronouns and titles that align with the biologically originating sex of the person being referenced . . . .”
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Around the Web

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

  •  In Lowe v. Mills, the 1st Circuit reversed in part a Maine district court’s dismissal of a suit byhealth care facility workers who were denied religious exemptions from the state’s COVID vaccine mandate. The court affirmed dismissal of the Title VII claims, but allowed plaintiffs’ Free Exercise and Equal Protection claims to go forward.
  • In Ratlliff v. Wycliffe Associates, Inc., the Middle District of Florida refused to dismiss a Title VII employment discrimination suit brought by a software developer who was fired from a Bible translation company after the company learned that he had entered a same-sex marriage. The court rejected the company’s RFRA and ministerial exception defenses.
  • In Tatel v. Mt. Lebanon School District (II), the Western District of Pennsylvania held that parents of first-grade students asserted plausible claims that their due process and free exercise rights were violated by a teacher who discussed gender identity with young students. The court found that the teacher’s discussion “conflicts with [the Plaintiffs’] sincerely held religious and moral beliefs.”
  • In Rolovich v. Washington State University, the Eastern District of Washington refused to dismiss a Title VII failure-to-accommodate claim by the head football coach of Washington State University. The coach was terminated after he refused to comply with the state’s Covid vaccine mandate on religious grounds, and the court found that he had done enough at the pleading stage to show a sincerely held religious belief.
  • The EEOC announced that it has filed a Title VII suit against Triple Canopy, Inc., for failing to reasonably accommodate an employee’s religious beliefs. The employee maintained that he “did not belong to a formal religious denomination but nonetheless held a Christian belief that men must wear beards.” The employer discharged him because he could not obtain a supporting statement from a religious leader.
  • The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota challenging a Minnesota law that excludes religious universities from a program that allows high school students to obtain no-cost college credit. 
Posted on by Mark Movsesian

Movsesian on 303 Creative

At First Things today, I report on last week’s oral argument in 303 Creative, the latest wedding vendor case to reach the Supreme Court–this time involving a web designer who does not wish to provide services for same-sex weddings. 303 Creative, like most such cases, presents a conflict between free speech, including religiously-motivated speech, and equality in the marketplace. Based on last week’s argument, I argue, it looks like speech will prevail. Here’s an excerpt:

Resolving [the web designer’s] claim requires the Court to answer a basic, conceptual question under the Court’s precedents: As applied to Smith’s web design business, does CADA regulate speech or conduct? If the former, CADA would have to satisfy a test known as “strict scrutiny.” Colorado would have to show that prosecuting Smith was “necessary” to promote a “compelling” state interest. By contrast, if the law regulates conduct and only incidentally affects speech, Colorado would have to satisfy a more lenient test known as the O’Brien standard. Colorado would have to show only that CADA “furthered” an “important” or “substantial” state interest unrelated to the suppression of speech.

At last week’s argument, Colorado’s lawyer argued that CADA is directed principally at conduct. Were Colorado to prosecute Smith, he explained, it would be because Smith had discriminated against customers based on sexual orientation, not because she expressed an opinion on same-sex marriage. Smith could not be required to praise same-sex marriage expressly—but she would have to design websites for all comers. Appearing on behalf of the Biden Administration as amicus curiae, Deputy Solicitor General Brian Fletcher agreed. Declining categorically to design websites for same-sex weddings, he told the justices, would be “a form of status-based discrimination properly within the scope of public accommodations laws.”

This argument appeared to persuade progressives like Justice Sonia Sotomayor—but not the Court’s conservatives. For example, Justice Neil Gorsuch stressed that Smith had said repeatedly that she would “serve everyone,” straight, gay, or transgender, and would decline to design websites for same-sex weddings no matter who requested them. She objected to expressing a message with which she disagreed, not to serving customers of different sexual identities. When it came to designing wedding websites, Gorsuch emphasized, “the question” for Smith wasn’t “who,” but “what.”

You can read the whole thing here.

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Around the Web

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

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Around the Web

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

Posted on by Mark Movsesian

What Does the Methodist Divide Mean?

Logo of the United Methodist Church

In the past couple of decades, American Protestant churches have suffered divisions on the question of homosexuality, and same-sex marriage in particular. Conservative congregations and dioceses have seceded from progressive national bodies, which has led, in some cases, to acrimonious, high-profile litigation over church finances and property. For lawyers and scholars who study law-and-religion, these disputes raise complicated and interesting legal questions. For the litigants, they are often emotional and painful conflicts–divorces, really–that leave everyone, winners and losers, worse off.

It seems that the United Methodist Church (UMC), America’s second-largest Protestant denomination, will not be able to avoid a split over LGBT issues. The Methodists may, however, avoid litigation. This week, a group of church leaders announced a plan for the dissolution of the worldwide church that would allow conservative congregations and conferences to leave the main body and join a new conservative denomination. Under the proposal, the UMC would give the new denomination $25 million and allow departing congregations to keep their property, and departing clergy, their pensions. The UMC seems likely to approve the plan at its next general conference in May.

Observers believe that most American Methodist congregations, which support same-sex marriage, will stick with the main body. But the UMC is a global entity, and, worldwide, the opposite may be the case. In a post at Juicy Ecumenism, Mark Tooley observes that the majority of Methodists today live in Africa, where the church is growing. African Methodists are quite conservative on LGBT and other issues. As a global matter, then, the large majority of Methodists may end up in the new, conservative denomination. If that is the case, Methodism will reflect the same dynamic that exists in Christianity worldwide: growth in conservative churches in the developing world, decline in progressive churches in the developed world. Another sign that Christianity’s center of gravity may be shifting from the global North to the global South.