News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.
PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) − For decades, we’ve seen clashes over civil rights and religious freedoms and now a new trend involves wedding vendors citing religious reasons to refuse service. Landmark cases involving photographers in Minnesota and a baker in Colorado have all eyes watching a case before the Arizona Supreme…
Pussy Riot performs in concert during Day For Night festival on December 16, 2017 in Houston, Texas © Getty Images / Gary Miller Two recent rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) demonstrate not only that it’s a political and hypocritical organization. They also show the severe structural…
Vincent Kessler / Reuters According to dominant Islamic traditions, the Prophet Muhammad’s third wife Aisha was six years old at their marriage and nine at its consummation. Muslims, as Graeme Wood has pointed out , have debated the issue of Aisha’s age for a very long time, and critics of…
A commentary on French President Macron’s declaration at the Vatican. This post is part 2 of 2. There is undeniable historical truth that institutionalized religion has functioned to back a ruling power and the social classes it has privileged (as with the Church of England under the Restoration following England’s…
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres make remarks at a press conference. Today, on the front page of the United Nations’ website is an article entitled, “French full-body veil ban, violated women’s freedom of religion: UN Human Rights Committee.” In 2012, two French Muslim women sent complaints to the U.N. when a…
China (MNN) – China may finally be making the move to re-write the Bible. Bob Fu, founder of China Aid , a persecution watchdog group, raised the alarm this month, in an address to members of the U-S government. According to him, the Three Self Patriotic Movement and the Chinese…
From the inbox: Can a church-affiliated group conduct after-school Bible study classes in a public school without running afoul of the U.S. Constitution? That depends. The First Amendment to the Constitution says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It was…
I’m going to hold this one up in prayer. The injustice inflicted upon the Klein family by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) should have never stood in a nation that claims to have freedom of religion and speech. And no matter your political persuasion or religious beliefs…
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò speaks at a dinner honoring then-Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick in 2012 (CNS photo/ Michael Rogel/PMS) I was going through a box of papers sent home from my Commonweal office the other day, tossing out most of them. Then I came across the fourteen-page text of a…
The recent horrific events in Pittsburgh wherein members of the Jewish community were killed while at their place of worship is a stark reminder that prejudices against religious beliefs remains in our society. At work, employers cannot tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment based on religion. Title VII of…
2018 was touted as the year the Supreme Court of Canada would consider how religious freedom should be valued as a right guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Supreme Court rendered three highly anticipated decisions which received a great deal of press. Two of the decisions…
The Ruddock review on Religious Freedom has recommended the creation of a Religious Discrimination Act as part of its 20 recommendations . Some have argued there is no pressing need for a Religious Discrimination Act. All states and territories , except South Australia and New South Wales, currently prohibit discrimination…
Ireland’s blasphemy law has had a long, ineffective and undistinguished tradition Wendy Shea’s cartoon depicted politicians John Bruton, Proinsias de Rossa and Ruairi Quinn walking past a priest distributing communion: the tagline was “Hello Progress – Bye Bye Father” – a play on the anti-divorce campaign slogan “Hello Divorce –…
Douglas Laycock has served as lead counsel in six religious liberty cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia School of Law, one of the nation’s leading experts on religious liberty, has completed a comprehensive series of books about the often legally and socially…
2018 was touted as the year the Supreme Court of Canada would consider how religious freedom should be valued as a right guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Supreme Court rendered three highly anticipated decisions which received a great deal of press. Two of the decisions…
CHICAGO (CN) – Churches and the IRS joined forces Wednesday before a sympathetic Seventh Circuit panel to argue that a 65-year-old income tax housing exemption for clergy members does not violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. “The court has to take history into account,” said attorney Luke Goodrich of the…
Pakistani religious groups protest against a Supreme Court decision that acquitted Asia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy, in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/B.K. Bangash) The citizens of Ireland voted recently, in a nationwide referendum, to remove a clause from their constitution that had made blasphemy a criminal offense. Ireland’s now-defunct…
Joined by his son, Matthew, Joe Lieberman, talked with David Lewis about his new book, which explores freedom and law from the Jewish perspective. Joe Lieberman is a relic of a time in American politics, in truth not so many years ago, when Democrats and Republicans reached across the ideological…
A stoush is brewing in the Coalition over plans to strip religious schools of the right to discriminate against LGBTI students, with conservative MPs angry about being kept in the dark on the changes. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is considering a special party room meeting on the issue today after…
Hide caption By Diane Smith / Reporter A nativity scene that was added to the Christmas display at the Ravenna Courthouse Lawn last year was the subject of complaints, including a letter from an out-of-state group that advocates for the separation of church and state. Rebecca Markert, legal director of…
Jack J. Lew ’78, former Secretary of the Treasury and Chief of Staff under President Obama, and Noah R. Feldman ’92, a Law School professor, held a discussion about identity, faith, and public responsibility at Harvard Law School. Jack J. Lew ’78, Secretary of the Treasury and White House Chief…
Are you sick of the constant political campaign commercials? Sick of hearing the names of the candidates? Sick of hearing how Candidate X is the best thing since sliced bread or the worst, depending on which political party or political action committee paid for the advertisement? Me, too. (Maybe we…
The Department of Justice on Wednesday filed a brief in a case concerning Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman who was fired from a Detroit funeral home after she informed her employer that she was beginning her gender transition. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Stephens and the…
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback speaks to reporters as he unveils the annual U.S. assessment of religious freedom around the world, at the State Department in Washington, Tuesday, May 29, 2018. Washington • The U. S. ambassador for religious freedom called for renewed activism…
The future of the “parsonage allowance exclusion” is in the hands of the courts. Photo courtesy of Creative Commons (RNS) — A federal court heard oral arguments this week on whether a longstanding housing tax break for clergy called a “parsonage allowance exclusion” is constitutional, setting the stage for a…