They’re Back!!

High School Football Fans Fill Stands With Biblical Verses

 

The New York Times reported yesterday that high school football fans in a Georgia town have found a way to respond to the school district’s ending the practice of cheerleaders carrying banners with Biblical quotations onto the field. As previously reported, Fort Oglethorpe High School, concerned about potential litigation, ended the 8-year old tradition of the players breaking through paper banners painted by cheerleaders with New Testament verses. Cheerleaders switched to banners carrying secular slogans.” But now, fans calling themselves “Warriors for Christ” (a take-off on the team’s name), have filled the stands with their own signs carrying Biblical verses, along with others reading “You Can’t Silence Us” and “Living Faith Outloud.” The fans have also held large rallies and sold more than 1,600 T-shirts carrying passages from Deuteronomy and Timothy. Also at last week’s game, led by students, the team prayed on the 50 yard line before play began. The team captain shouted “In Jesus Name!” as players broke out of a huddle. The Times commented: “the backlash demonstrates the difficulty of separating church and state in communities, especially in the South, where many prefer the two merged.”

Colbert’s Satirical Review of Arguments In Sunrise Rock Cross Case

There has been much commentary on last week’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court in Salazar v. Buono– the case involving the Sunrise Rock Cross located in the Mojave Preserve war memorial . (See prior posting.) In paticular pundits have focused on Justice Scalia’s questioning. (St. Louis Post Dispatch.) Stephen Colbert’s satirical take on the arguments is among the more interesting reactions to Scalia. Thanks to Don Byrd for pointing out this video clip:

Thanks to Religious Clause

Group Challenges Constitutionality of IRS Parsonage Allowance Provisions

The Freedom from Religion Foundation and 21 of its members, represented by Michael Newdow, filed a federal lawsuit today challenging the constitutionality of two provisions of the Internal Revenue Code that give special tax deductions to “ministers of the gospel.” the complaint (full text) in Freedom from Religion Foundation v. Geithner, (ED CA, filed 10/16/ 2009) alleges that Sections 107 and 265(a)(6) of the Revenue Code violate the Establishment Clause by discriminating against secular organizations and excessively entangling the government with religion because determinations whether the sections apply turn on religious criteria and inquiries.

Section 107 exempts from income the rental value of a parsonage, or the amount of a parsonage allowance, furnished to a “minister of the gospel.” Section 265(a)(6) allows a minister of
the gospel to claim deductions interest and property taxes, even though the money used to pay such amounts was received from a church in the form of a tax-exempt §107 allowance. The concern is not a literal interpretation of “minister of the gospel”– courts have not limited application of these IRS regulations to Christian denominations. (Background). Instead the objection is to the requirement that to be deductible, the parsonage allowance must be received as compensation for service performed in the exercise of a religious ministry. This requires an examination of whether the clergy person is performing religious worship or conducting the activities of a religious organization.

The lawsuit also challenges Sections 17131.6 and 17280(d)(2) of the California Revenue and Taxation Code which track the federal provisions being challenged. ABC News 10 reported on the lawsuit.

Red Mass: lobbying high court or simple prayer service?

By Bill Mears
CNN Supreme Court Producer

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Chief Justice John Roberts attend Red Mass in 2005.

Read entire article.

CIVIL RIGHTS, COMMUNICATIONS LAW, GOVERNMENT LAW, PROPERTY LAW & REAL ESTATE

Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, No. 07-665
In a First Amendment action claiming that Plaintiff was entitled to place a monument in a public park where Defendant city had allowed other monuments, denial of a preliminary injunction is affirmed, where the First Amendment does not apply to government speech.

New York Amish Headed to Federal Court

From Prof. Patty Salkin’s “Law of the Land” blog:

 

Over the summer, this blog reported that a local justice court in upstate New York held that the enforcement of the building code for all residents, including the Amish, does not violate the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Click here for the posting.

 

According to the Watertown Times, it now appears, that with the assistance of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Amish are about to file a claim in federal court (Northern District of New York) claiming that their religious beliefs are being violated by the Town forcing them to install smoke detectors in their homes, to submit engineering plans and to allow home inspections.  In March 2008 the Becket Fundsubmitted a letter to the Town outlining their analysis and charging selective enforcement of the building code against the Amish. Town officials claim that the building code is enforced for all residents in the Town and that neglecting to enforce the Code for Amish homes would be unfair to the rest of the residents in the Town.

Snake Handling in the USA

Snake handling as a religious practice continues today:

In July of 2008, 10 people were arrested and 125 venomous snakes were confiscated as part of an undercover sting operation titled “Twice Shy.” Pastor Gregory James Coots of the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name was arrested and 74 snakes were seized from his home as part of the sting. A Tennessee woman died in 1995 due to a rattlesnake bite received during a service at the Tabernacle church.^[6][7]

The practice is legal in the state of West Virginia.

Read the full account here.

French Muslims Find Haven in Catholic Schools

Here is a uniquely French twist on the establishment and free exercise of religion:

In France, which has only four Muslim schools, some of the country’s 8,847 Roman Catholic schools have become refuges for Muslims seeking what an overburdened, secularist public sector often lacks: spirituality, an environment in which good manners count alongside mathematics, and higher academic standards.

No national statistics are kept, but Muslim and Catholic educators estimate that Muslim students now make up more than 10 percent of the two million students in Catholic schools. In ethnically mixed neighborhoods in Marseille and the industrial north, the proportion can be more than half.

Read entire article here.

 

Head Scarves

Massage firm steps up faith-based defense

From the Arizona Daily Star:

A proposed final court order drafted by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for a judge’s signature would have LaVoie forfeit nearly $2 million worth of real estate and cash, and permanently bar him from engaging in any business involving massage “or other physical touching of male customers by female employees or contractors.”

To fight that, LaVoie is now citing constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion.
“This offer of comfort by this means is based on several Biblical passages,” wrote attorney Brad Roach, who is representing LaVoie while seeking election as Pima County attorney.

LaVoie, who testified he is the pastor of the Church of Liberty, “has every right under the First Amendment to freely exercise his religion, which religion includes offering comfort through the laying on of hands,” Roach wrote in an objection to the proposed order of forfeiture.

Alex Mahon, an Arizona assistant attorney general, responded that LaVoie never argued at trial that laying on of hands was part of church ceremonies. In fact, the evidence showed his “angels” were lay people committing acts of prostitution with the spa’s male customers, Mahon wrote.

***
While that case was pending, the Pima County Board of Supervisors met on Feb. 21, 2006. According to published minutes, “the invocation was delivered by Pastor John LaVoie of the Church of Liberty.”
County staff had selected him at random from the phone book and invited him to open the meeting.
“We had no idea at that time” that police had raided LaVoie’s spa and that the state had filed to confiscate the spa property, said Clerk of the Board Lori Godoshian.

In Colorado Christian University v. Weaver, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Adopts the Incorrect Theory that Religious Individuals Are Entitled to Exemptions from Generally Applicable Laws

By MARCI HAMILTON

Thursday, Aug. 7, 2008

Recently, Judge Michael McConnell, a George W. Bush appointee, issued a very significant opinion for the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit interpreting the Constitution’s Religion Clauses. The opinion is revealing as it takes the Supreme Court’s recent hostility to the separation of church and state in Establishment Clause cases and further spins the logic.

When McConnell was a law professor, he advocated the concept of “mandatory accommodation.” In a Harvard Law Review article, McConnell explained his theory: It holds that the government must, in the vast majority of circumstances, sacrifice the public interest to the claims of religious individuals or organizations when they challenge generally-applicable laws.

 

The historical arguments McConnell made have, since then, been soundly discredited by others, including Professor Philip Hamburger of Columbia University School of Law. Moreover, the “mandatory accommodation” theory was rightly and soundly rejected by the Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Employment Div. v Smith. There, Native American Church members who were drug counselors sought to use peyote in religious ceremonies and obtain unemployment compensation even though the use violated state drug laws. The Court said that their religious motivation provided no defense to the fact that such conduct broke a law that, rather than singling them out, applied to everyone. McConnell’s attitude of entitlement to religiously-motivated conduct that violates the law is not terribly distant from the holding in Colorado Christian University v. Weaver that a pervasively sectarian school is entitled to state scholarship funds without concern for government support of religious belief and mission. In fact, the decision explicitly collapses the Establishment, Free Exercise, and Equal Protection Clauses into a single principle: “equality.”

 

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Read entire article here.