News from around the world. Curated by Mark McDowell. Posts do not constitute agreement or endorsement.
In an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 7 in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice sided with the Christian bakery owner who refused to design and create a cake for a same-sex wedding (full text). Some 15 other…
The Louisiana State Bar Association is considering adopting an amendment to its Rules of Professional Conduct that would define professional misconduct as including: This is a narrower version of ABA Model Rule 8.4(g) which the ABA House of Delegates adopted in 2016. Last week, the Louisiana Attorney General’s Office issued…
Until the modern period the integration of church (or other religion) and state (or political life) had been taken for granted. The political order was always tied to an official religion in Christian Europe, pre-Christian Europe, and in the Arabic world. But from the eighteenth century onwards, some European states…
In Ex parte Tiara Brooke Lycans, (AL App., July 28, 2017), an Alabama appellate court refused to issue a writ of mandamus ordering a trial judge who also serves as a preacher of a fundamentalist Christian church to recuse himself in a divorce action in which the wife, a lesbian,…
The debate over same sex marriage in Australia has been re-ignited by news that some members of the federal governing Liberal/National Party (LNP) coalition are proposing, contrary to their party’s policy, to introduce legislation in Federal Parliament this coming week to redefine marriage to extend it to same sex couples.…
A fe excepts rom the Law and Religion Blog UK’s roundup: Doug Chaplin: Living comfortably: the fiction of a stipend? which Gary Alderson conveniently summarizes as “a blog post on the recent press reports that Church of England stipends are enough to live on basically pointing out they are, as…
Two high-profile cases concerning the approach of public authorities towards religion and identity, where the care and future of looked after children were concerned, have featured this summer. Firstly, a Sikh couple were denied the opportunity to adopt a white baby by Adopt Berkshire, the Windsor and Maidenhead council-run adoption…
This seems to be a book not about liberalism as a kind of religion (or as valuing a particular kind of religion), but instead about what liberalism–particularly the secular liberalism of the kind championed by the author–ought to do with religion in today’s day and age. A book very […]…
Conservative Christianity has been and continues to be an important movement in American law. But it is difficult to read an even-handed account of it, since academic treatments tend to view it as a force of evil that must be identified, guarded against, and hopefully obliterated, and non-academic treatments […]…
Here is an interesting set of essays on the relationship of the Christian virtue of agape– the distinterested love of others or love of neighbor–to law in general and a variety of legal disciplines in particular. The volume is pitched as an alternative to other more typical ways of […]…
Later this year, Oxford University Press will publish a new book by lawyer and theologian Cathleen Kaveny, the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor of Law and Theology at Boston College. Professor Kavey presented her work at the inaugural session of our Center’s Colloquium in Law and Religion in 2012, […]…
From Edward Zelinsky of Cardozo Law School comes this timely and important book about the relationship of religion and taxation in American law, Taxing the Church: Religion, Exemptions, Entanglement, and the Constitution . I was very pleased to read the entire manuscript in draft and to provide a blurb […]…
U.S. pastor and pro-family activist Scott Lively June 6, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — A federal district judge yesterday dismissed a leftist lawsuit against Christian pro-family advocate Scott Lively, who was sued for “crimes against humanity” for helping political and faith leaders in Uganda resist the LGBTQ agenda in the east […]…
Canada’s Ontario province has passed legislation that allows the government to seize children from families if they refuse to accept their child’s chosen "gender identity" or "gender expression." Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reacts as he and his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau (L) walk in the Vancouver Pride Parade […]…
Yesterday the State Department released its 2016 International Religious Freedom Annual Report ( full text ). In remarks on the Report , Secretary of Sate Tillerson highlighted concerns about religious liberty in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Bahrain, China, Pakistan and Sudan. Importantly, Tillerson also emphasized the State Department’s conclusion […]…
From Religion and Law Roundup (27 Aug 2017): cases and news related to: Brexit and the UK courts Data protection after Brexit Sparing the rod in Scotland? Triple talaq in India Charges for entry to C of E churches and cathedrals Click here to view full article at www.lawandreligionuk.com
Article IV of the Agreement of 3 January 1979 (“the Agreement”) between the Spanish State and the Holy See concerning financial matters provides that: “1. The Holy See, the Bishops’ Conference, dioceses, parishes and other territorial units, religious orders and congregations and ‘institutes of consecrated life’ and their provinces […]…
The Washington Post today reports that an article in the influential Jesuit magazine La Civilta Cattolica– whose content is approved by the Vatican Secretariat of State– is critical of conservative Catholic support for the evangelical political agenda in the United States. The article is authored by the journal’s editor […]…
In National Institute of Family Life Advocates v. Rauner , (ND IL, July 19, 2017), an Illinois federal district court granted a preliminary injunction to plaintiffs, a group of pro-life health care facilities and medical personnel, who object to Illinois SB 1564 . The statute, as a condition of […]…
A suit was filed last week in Hawaii federal district court challenging Hawaii’s SB 501 enacted earlier this year that requires “limited service pregnancy centers” to disseminate on-site to patients a notice that says: Hawaii has public programs that provide immediate free or low-cost access to comprehensive family planning […]…
Alberta Education Minister David Eggen EDMONTON, Alberta, March 21, 2017 ( LifeSiteNews ) – The Alberta New Democratic Government has been sitting for four months on a report about how to deal with an independent Christian school society that is apparently violating legislation requiring all provincial schools to offer […]…
In a case with an unusual twist, a Florida state appeals court yesterday upheld the policy of a Catholic school requiring immunization of all students, even when a parent has religious objections to immunization. In Flynn v. Estevez , (FL App., June 27, 2017), the appeals court held that […]…
An attack on ‘all comers’ mandates Tucked into a new Kentucky law that protects religious expression in public schools are provisions that protect college students’ freedom of speech and association. The so-called Charlie Brown law was prompted by a public school excising a Bible verse from its production of […]…
From SSRN: Joseph William Singer, Property and Sovereignty Imbricated: Why Religion Is Not an Excuse to Discriminate in Public Accommodations , (18 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 521 (2017)). Steven Douglas Smith, Against ‘Civil Rights’ Simplism: How Not to Accommodate Competing Legal Commitments , (San Diego Legal Studies Paper) and more.…
A quiet week, apart from… … not the Great Repeal Bill On Thursday, the Government published the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill . We noted it here and the Parliament page on the Bill is here . In Public Law for Everyone , Professor Mark Elliott’s post looks in some […]…