Blog from the Capital

An analysis of the 2008 federal appropriations bills shows an "uptick" in the number of religious groups receiving "earmarks." The very nature of these non-competitive funding devices invites preference and bias to enter the equation.
"Earmarks are about picking winners and losers, and it gets more touchy when religion comes into it," Steve Ellis, the vice president for programs of the group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said. "That starts raising red flags." Roll Call (subscription req'd) offers the report.

[UPDATE: AU's Wall of Separation has more: "According to [Roll Call], millions of federal dollars go to groups that are not just religious, but evangelistic. Indeed, many 'require participants to convert [to Christianity] in order to fully benefit from their programs.'"]

Posted by Don Byrd at 11:42 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Indianapolis Star has fallout from yesterday's 7th Circuit decision over-turning a lower court's ban on sectarian prayers to open the Indiana House. As I posted yesterday, the panel of judges used the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation to claim the plaintiffs lack standing to sue. In a lengthy and blistering dissent, (pp. 34-57) Judge Wood warns of the ramifications of this interpretation:

This reading of Freedom From Religion would effectively adopt Justice Scalia’s concurring opinion for himself and Justice Thomas advocating the overruling of Flast. . . It would become impossible to bring a taxpayer suit for anything short of an unimaginably stupid or insensitive legislative action—perhaps a law announcing that Indiana is a Christian state—which in any event would be unlikely to inflict specific enough harm on any one person to allow him or her to sue for more particular injuries.
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Under the majority’s approach, even if the Speaker decides to start working his way through the Anglican Book of Common Prayer day by day, notwithstanding the presence of Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and other legislators, staff, and constituents, nothing can be done to enforce the command of the Establishment Clause. As long as a majority of the House is Christian, it is also reasonable to predict that
the House itself will never take action to curb such a practice.

From Judge Wood's dissent:

The Establishment Clause uniquely involves this sort of psychic, aesthetic, or intangible injury. The injury involved is never physical and only rarely (with the prominent exception of taxpayer cases, it so happens) even monetary.
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Indeed, viewed against the backdrop of other injuries in Establishment Clause cases, the plaintiffs here have shown more concrete damage than most: they have enumerated, with some degree of accuracy, the value of the “three pence” they pay to support the practices of which they complain. This harm is more concrete than injuries arising from a Ten Commandments display, a holiday creche, or a graduation prayer, all of which are staples of Establishment Clause jurisprudence. By the standards set in other Establishment Clause cases, anybody who has heard one of these prayers (in person or on the web) should be able to claim standing at least to have her claim heard, whether or not it eventually succeeds.
Potential injury to the plaintiffs before us—in their role as constituents, which they necessarily are if they are taxpayers—is even expressly considered and warned against in the letter sent to Ministers of the Day, asking that they “strive to be ecumenical”; the caution is presumably there to avoid inadvertently excluding or offending a constituent from a “different faith background.” Categorizing this foreseen, concrete harm as an “amorphous burden” that does not give rise to a cognizable case or controversy, gives insufficient weight to the nature of the harm inherent in all Establishment Clause cases.
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The reason why the Alito plurality thought that the Flast rule did not apply to the plaintiffs in Freedom From Religion was simple: the plaintiffs were not challenging legislative actions; instead, they were attacking Executive Branch expenditures in support of religion (in particular, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives within the Executive Office of the President, and related Executive Centers in other federal agencies and departments).
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Justice Alito’s rationale was founded on the fact that the expenditure was not only executive but discretionary—two steps removed from any legislative action. The majority in our case bases its argument on the fact that there is no specific line item reading “Chaplain—Minister of the Day Program” in the budget. But that begs the question. The budget is not the only legislative act before us. There is
also House Rule 10.2, which specifically calls for the prayer, and the prayer is concretely supported by the appropriations the General Assembly makes for the House in the budget. Far from being twice-removed from a legislative action, as was the case in Freedom From Religion, the challenge before us is ratified twice by the legislature, once as a rule and the second time in the budget. It is unquestionably a legislative act.

Posted by Don Byrd at 10:02 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A successful challenge to Indiana's practice of opening House sessions with overtly sectarian prayer has been overruled by the 7th Circuit today, citing the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hein in determining that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the case. A District Court had issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the Indiana House from continuing its sectarian prayer practice. This decision reverses that injunction.

The plaintiffs have not tied their status as taxpayers to the House’s allegedly unconstitutional practice of regularly offering a sectarian prayer. They have not shown that the legislature has extracted from them tax dollars for the establishment and implementation of a program that violates the Establishment Clause. The appropriations, which cover the incidental costs of the program, “did not expressly authorize, direct, or even mention the expenditures,” attendant to the “Minister of the Day” program. Instead, the plaintiffs allege only an “’expenditure of government funds in violation of the Establishment Clause,’” which the Court explicitly rejected as inadequate in Hein.

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A new poll shows that a majority of Americans - 68% - don't want candidates to use their religious faith to influence voters. Even a majority of regular church-goers (60%) feel that way. The poll was sponsored by the Interfaith Alliance.

Notably, this sentiment is consistent across political party affiliation, with nearly 60 percent of self-identified Republicans agreeing and three-quarters of Democrats (75 percent) and Independents (70 percent) concurring. Furthermore, by a three-to-one margin, Americans believe that clergy and religious leaders should not have a great deal of influence on voters’ decisions (great deal of influence, 8 percent versus no influence at all, 31 percent).

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A US District Judge has declined to halt Illinois' new law mandating a moment of silence in public schools, but notes concern about the bill's title and wording. The Chicago Tribune has more:

Judge Robert Gettleman ordered attorneys in the case to file briefs, but said he was satisfied after hearing from a school district lawyer that the Buffalo Grove moment of silence will be neutral and not a morning call to prayer.

Lawyers for atheist activist Rob Sherman indicated they could sue the Illinois State Board of Education as soon as today.
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Gettleman told the parties he has some serious questions about the statute.

"Let there be no mistake about that," he said, including its title and the way the law could be abused.

"I understand where the plaintiff is concerned," the judge said. But, he said, the district's promise for a neutral moment of silence reduced the need for an emergency order.

"I think that the balancing of harm does not favor the plaintiff at this moment," the judge said.

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Presidential candidate Barack Obama's efforts in South Carolina over the weekend turned into as much of a revival meeting as a political campaign:

[T]he Democratic presidential candidate from Illinois -- hoping his campaign can recapture some of that old-time religious fervor -- launched a three-city gospel concert series over the weekend across the state, in North Charleston, Greenwood and Columbia. Although Obama did not attend the "Embrace the Change" series in person (instead campaigning in Iowa), he was here in spirit, appearing by video screen and sending out his surrogates, such as pastor Hezekiah Walker and singer Beverly Crawford.

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The Akron (OH) City Council has ended its practice of opening meetings with The Lord's Prayer, after Americans United warned the city of its legal jeopardy.

“I’m delighted that the Akron City Council did the right thing and that no one attending those meetings now feels like a second-class citizen because they don’t believe in the Lord’s Prayer,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “The people who wanted to pray are going to do so before they go into council chambers, and that’s fine.”

Posted by Don Byrd at 08:39 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Did Congress over-reach when, in the RLUIPA legislation of 2000, it amended the Religious Freedom Restoration Act's definition of an "exercise of religion"? Previously, to make a claim under RFRA, plaintiffs had to demonstrate that the burden on their religious exercise inhibited something central to the religion. RLUIPA changed that (who's to judge which beliefs and actions are central to a person's religion??) to "any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief."

Law professor Viktor David Amar reviews the issues in the Arizona Snowbowl dispute - set for re-hearing by the 9th Circuit - and believes this could become a significant question, since it figured in to the earlier panel's decision in favor of the Navajo-led plaintiffs.

This could be a very significant broadening of religious liberty, and one with which the courts haven't yet really grappled. (Indeed, I could find only one other federal Court of Appeals decision besides Navajo Nation that noted this 2000 change in RFRA's definition of religious exercise. Multiple post-2000 cases from federal courts seem to have missed this amendment -- evaluating RFRA claims based on a requirement that the plaintiff's exercise need be required by, or at least central to, his religion.)

After 2000, though, a wider range of religious sensibilities are protected. If a person's religion even mildly inclines him to do something, then that activity could still be protected -- and might compel a government exemption - notwithstanding the fact that it lies at the outer boundary of the person's religious belief system.

This will be a very interesting case to watch for the future of RFRA, for the Appeals Court's handling of this issue and the others the Professor raises. Will this new definition be seen as proper support for the correctness of Judge Fletcher's earlier decision? Or will it become the basis for a new challenge? As Amar concludes, "Depending on what the panel decides, this case may have to be considered by the Supreme Court. If that happens, we might learn more about what the two newest members of the Court, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito, think about these matters."

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The Director of the White House's Faith-Based Initiatives Office reads the tea leaves of the presidential campaign and sees the effort continuing, no matter who wins the election in 2008. In an interview with the Waco Herald-Tribune (thanks to Religion Clause for the link), Jay Hein discusses the future of the initiative, and the task of maintaining the separation of church and state.

Q What about the church-state debate?

A The church-state debate is a very meaningful one, and we are very vigilant about protecting the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

We offer training and technical assistance on that question to state officials and to charities, and we tell faith-based charities, “You know, if you can’t separate your spiritual mission from your community mission, you shouldn’t apply for these grants because you’ll come in conflict with the establishment clause.”

Q Will this office survive beyond the Bush presidency?

A I think it will. All the presidential candidates are speaking very favorably about this office. It’s organized by executive order, which is less permanent than an act of Congress, so it’s up to the next president to decide if they want to continue the executive order or not. But what I find very reassuring about the sustainability of this initiative is that more and more public officials on both sides of the political aisle see the pragmatic value of this as a governing strategy.

Q How effective have safeguards been in maintaining separation between church and state?

A We’ve created legal guidance that never occurred before. We’ve created technical assistance services and now have delivered those to over 100,000 state and local officials and nonprofit leaders.

We’re setting the bar very high on understanding appropriateness, the appropriate use of public funds and the appropriate expression of faith in delivery of services.

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Election law professor and former Justice Department tax attorney Donald Tobin outlines the sequence of events in the IRS' investigation into All Saints Church for a sermon deemed to have improperly interfered with the 2004 Presidential election. He makes the case that in its determination to fight back, the church "overplayed its hand" when accusing the IRS of having improper communication with the Justice Department.

What would be unadvisable and, in my view, improper, is if political people at Justice or the IRS were trying to influence whether the IRS proceeded with the case. But the e-mails indicate no such communication. The content of the e-mails indicate that Justice was troubled with the substance of the case and had questions for the IRS. It appears from the e-mails that Justice wanted answers to some of All Saints Church's complaints and also wanted to know how the IRS distinguished this case from some contrary rulings. The substance of the e-mails shows collaboration not intervention.
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In All Saints Church's world, the IRS and the Justice Department could not consult on a case until the case was formally transferred to the Justice Department by the IRS. In my view, such a policy would be a big mistake. A client needs to be able to talk with its attorney, and communication between the IRS and the Department of Justice is essential for coherent and efficient tax enforcement.

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A recent ruling by a Pennsylvania judge has created havoc around hundreds of couples across the state who thought they were married. York County Common Pleas Judge Maria Musti Cook determined that Dorie Heyer's wedding was invalid because the minister who performed the ceremony received his ordination in 5 minutes online, and had neither a church nor a congregation. According to yesterday's USAToday, Pennsylvania is home to 6,000 ministers ordained through the "Universal Life Church Monastery", which offers such an online service. The decision sent officials scrambling:

"Things have reached a point where we're approaching some chaos," said David Cleaver, the solicitor for Pennsylvania's state association of registers of wills and clerks of orphans' court.

The American Civil Liberties Union says Pennsylvania officials have trampled the boundary between church and state and is mulling legal action.
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After the ruling, Cleaver sent an e-mail to all county clerks and registers, telling them not to accept marriage licenses from couples married by online ministers. Five days later, he sent a second e-mail, telling them to accept the licenses.

"I said to myself: Wait a minute, we're not cops. We're not entrusted to check out these licenses," he said, explaining his change of mind.

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A delegation of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom was assured that the government of Vietnam will keep communication open with the US on the issue of religious freedom.

The PM welcomed the US religion watchdog delegation and reiterated Viet Nam’s position of respecting the public rights to religion and non-religion.

He said he was pleased to see steps forwards in co-operative and friendly ties between the two countries.

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Associated Press profiles Wesley Spratt, the Rhode Island inmate who successfully sued to regain the right to preach in prison after a new warden, James Weeden, banned the practice. I found this quote especially interesting:

"People behind a pulpit are in a position of power," Weeden said. "And people behind a pulpit, of all faiths, have abused that power."

Spratt said he challenged the ban because it interfered with his calling.

Posted by Don Byrd at 10:03 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee claimed, in a recent debate, that "most" of the Declaration of Independence signers were "clergymen." PolitiFact says he's a wee bit off.

Not even close.

Only one of the 56 was an active clergyman, and that was John Witherspoon. Witherspoon was a Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).
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We'd like to give Huckabee every benefit of the doubt, but even if you consider former clergymen among the signers the best you could come up with is four. Out of 56.

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According to AU's Rob Boston, who attended last weekend's "Value Voters" Summit, the IRS may be investigating some churches for distribution of improper voter guides.
At a breakout section on churches and politics Rob attended, attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund announced that a handful of churches had received letters from the IRS concerning their voter guides.

Infranco and McCaleb projected the IRS letter onto a large screen. It was not up there long enough for me to copy the entire thing, but I did get down one important passage. The IRS has expressed concern that these churches may have distributed guides that did not cover “a wide range of subjects, but were limited to controversial issues likely to be of interest to social conservative voters.”

That is interesting. If the IRS is indeed cracking down on voter guides, that action is long overdue – it’s also something that ought to be of concern to every religious leader in America. The IRS has long warned houses of worship about guides produced by outside organizations. Much of this material is produced by groups that have a stake in the outcome of an election. It has no place in church pews.

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According to a WorldNetDaily report, the White House is claiming to be instrumental in writing the religious exemption in the proposed Employee Non-Discrimination Act, a move which might signal the Administration's willingness to sign, rather than veto the bill. (note: see update below. The White House has now indicated an intention to veto the bill.)

"Americans For Truth has learned that a White House official has boasted to pro-family leaders attending a private administration briefing that White House staffers were involved in the negotiations to craft expanded religious exemption language for the new ENDA bill," according to Peter LaBarbera's Americans For Truth organization.

"At the briefing, the White House official did not commit to the assembled evangelical leaders that the president would veto [ENDA], saying that they will wait to see the bill's final language, according to our source.

[UPDATE: Think Progress relays the White House indication that President Bush will indeed veto the ENDA, despite working to negotiate religious exemption language.]

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Brian Kaylor of the Baptist General Convention of Missour writes on the news that the Convention has become officially affiliated with the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty!

Throughout Baptist history there have been courageous individuals who attempted to maintain religious freedom. One group of such Baptists has been the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC).

During the recent meeting of the BJC, the Baptist General Convention of Missouri was accepted as a member body. With this move the BGCM joins the most unified Baptist effort to protect our religious freedoms. Although Missouri Baptists had supported this vital effort in the past, there had been no formal connection or support for a few years. Thankfully we now have an opportunity to not only work to protect our freedoms but also preserve our rich Baptist heritage that Williams and other Baptists struggled to create and maintain.

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Assessing the recently announced Supreme Court docket for the new term, declining to hear any religion cases at this point, Baptist Joint Committee counsel Holly Hollman discusses one she wishes they had taken up:

[T]he Court let stand Vision Church, United Methodist v. Village of Long Grove, a case out of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, that was one of special interest to the BJC because of our leadership role in advocating for the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. In this case, we joined many other religious organizations seeking review by the Supreme Court because the decision below applies a narrow, watered down interpretation of RLUIPA’s statutory protections in this land use case. The appellate court in Vision Church set the threshold for finding a “substantial burden” on religion so high that the protections of RLUIPA are effectively rendered meaningless. The case also highlights the differences among jurisdictions over the application of RLUIPA and confusion in lower courts over the meaning of statutory terms in the context of RLUIPA and the Free Exercise Clause. In 2005, the Supreme Court heard a case dealing with the prisoner provisions of RLUIPA, but it has not yet reviewed any case applying the statute’s land use provisions.

E-mail the BJC's resident database expert, Matt Anderson. to subscribe to the Report!

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Yesterday's NYTimes offers a primer in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) as a lead-in to its coverage of last week's federal appeals court decision in favor of the Westchester Day School. The Orthodox Jewish school had been mired in a zoning dispute after the zoning board of Mamoroneck, NY ruled against its application for expansion. According to the NYTimes' account, lower court judges noted that the skirmish was marked by:

“intense and unrelenting pressure” from politically connected nearby residents.

“I think the conduct of the zoning board exemplified to a ‘T’ why Rluipa is such an important statute,” said Stanley Bernstein, one of the lawyers for the school and its executive vice president. “If we could be harassed like this, imagine what could happen to other institutions that are newer, younger, not hidden away on 26 bucolic acres.”

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Presidential candidates appealed to "values voters" at a Washington, D. C. Family Research Council summit this weekend. Common church-state topics? You can probably guess. The Mt. Soledad Cross memorial, school vouchers, the religion of America's Founding Fathers, etc.. I've compiled quotes relating to religious liberty issues in the extended entry below.

Rudolph Giuliani

Our Constitution is not antagonistic to religion or faith or God. It has two principles, both of them entirely consistent with one nation under God: a prohibition against the establishment of religion, and an equally strong prohibition against government interference in the free exercise of religion. When you read those two together, these guarantees make clear that our Founding Fathers wanted to have a nation where people of faith could freely practice their faith as openly as they wanted to, proclaim their faith as strongly as they would like to, and it could be as much a part of the political debate as individual minds and hearts directed.
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People of faith should not be marginalized in our civic debates. Believers have every right to participate in the political process. There's no exception in the First Amendment that says we have the right of free speech--except for people of faith or people of religion or people of strong religious views.
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we need to stand up to those who try to drive traditional expressions of religion out of our public life, whether it's lawsuits--(applause)--whether it's lawsuits that attempt to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, or institutional resistance to having the word "God" appear on certificates that accompany flags which are flown over the Capitol Dome. (Applause.) Freedom of religion is not freedom from religion.

I know a lot of folks here know about the controversy where the ACLU tried to chainsaw the cross off of the veterans' memorial overlooking the Pacific coast over the last couple of years. And they got to the point where they actually had a federal court order that was going to fine the city of San Diego $5,000 a day for every day that that cross was not torn off that memorial.

And I was driving past Mount Soledad, and you know, a sailor or Marine coming in to San Diego can see that cross from 50 miles away. It's a great symbol of our Christianity and our beliefs and our veterans and our country. And my wife said, "You know, you better introduce a bill to try to save it." ... And we dictated this bill that made this memorial a federal piece of land. Basically we took it away from the state. We made it a federal memorial.
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And ladies and gentlemen--and while we're talking about what it takes to be an American--we need to teach our children, along with the substantive subjects that they need to learn by having school choice, by having vouchers, by being allowed to go to charter schools--we need to teach them something besides reading and writing and the other tests of accountability that we've placed in place at this time.

My friends, if America stands for anything, it stands for the freedom to follow our own hearts, to determine our own relationship with God. Our Constitution did not establish a national religion, but neither did it banish any worship. Religious freedom does not require Americans to hide their faith from public view or that communities must refrain from publicly acknowledging the importance to them of faith.

Judges should not legislate from the bench and actually restrict religious freedom by banning its expression in the public square.

I also want to defend America's religious heritage. I'm convinced that a family with faith, a family that has a pastor or another adult that cares about every single child has a very distinct advantage in guiding children to a successful adulthood, and I want to make sure that the attorney general defends the free exercise of religion in this country. The effort to establish an anti-religion in America--the anti-religion of secularism--has got to come to an end. We're a nation under God and we do place our trust in him.

We had a group of Founding Fathers who knew the scriptures, who knew the wisdom of the ages, who knew that there was such a thing as human nature, who knew that man was prone to err and government ought to be constructed on the basis of that knowledge, but that man could rise to great heights when inspired and when given the opportunity. They put forth a Declaration of Independence and announced to the entire world that we believe and we acknowledge and we know in this country that our basic rights come from God and not from any government.

Posted by Don Byrd at 02:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom is urging the State Department to shut down a Saudi-funded school in Virginia until it makes available its curricula for examination.

The report relies heavily on a 2006 analysis of Saudi textbooks that found inflammatory passages against Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims. One example for ninth-graders said that the hour of judgment "will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them."
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Nail al-Jubeir, an embassy spokesman, said textbooks have been revised and that commissioners never visited the school to see them. He said ISA (Islamic Saudi Academy) "does not teach intolerance," adding, "We have nothing to hide. We've told anyone who wants to take a look at them that they are welcome to do so."

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A new report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government profiles the role of nonprofit groups - including religious organizations - in Gulf Coast disaster relief efforts of the last 2 years. As the Roundtable points out, the reality of those groups' limitations stands in "sharp contrast" to the newly announced White House strategy that will depend on them more and more in future disaster scenarios. In effect, the ongoing effort to funnel government's social service responsibilities to faith-based groups has led - as many predicted - to a growing and unsustainable reliance on religious and community organizations to perform the duties of the government.

Read more, including quotes from both the White House's new plan, and the Rockefeller Report, in the extended entry below.

The National Strategy for Homeland Security, released on October 5, includes this affirmation that the central recovery effort in a disaster is not the job of the government, but of organizations like non-profits:

Going forward, we must develop a comprehensive – but not bureaucratic or government-centric – framework wherein communities that are directly or indirectly affected by a large-scale disaster can flourish on a sustainable path to rebuilding and revitalization. This framework and accompanying plans must be closely guided by, and have at their core, the citizens, private sector, and faith-based and community organizations that are most severely and directly affected. After all, individual citizens and the private and non-profit sectors are our society's wells of creativity, innovation, and resourcefulness, and they have the greatest stake in, and urgency for, revitalizing their community.

Nonprofit, community-based, and faith-based organizations are well-suited to help out in disaster response and recovery. They are flexible, they can adapt their missions, they can marshal resources, and they can get around stultifying paperwork. But even the most efficient, well-run, well-funded nonprofit group has a limited reach. For all of the work that the nonprofit sector has done and continues to do in the hurricane recovery effort, it is still more akin to a drop in the bucket rather than a giant wave.

The scale of the devastation is so vast in Louisiana and across the Mississippi Gulf Coast that only the government has the capacity to handle significant rebuilding. The nonprofit sector was not meant to replace government as the primary agent of recovery — although the research indicates it seems to have taken the lead in areas like St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans, where the local governments are struggling. Rather it was to buttress the governmental response, to fill in the gaps left by government. For the recovery to proceed in a timely and substantial way, government must take the lead while the nonprofit, community-based, and faith-based organizations play a strong supporting role with their focus on the human element of the disaster.

In that same spirit, it's wrong for the government to slough its responsibilities off to religious and other nonprofit groups, hoping that the charitable commitment of Americans will pick up the slack. That dependency compromises the church-state relationship, and worse yet, as this new report demonstrates, it won't work.

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The Transportation Safety Administration has adjusted a recent policy that required security officers to "pat down" certain head coverings like turbans worn by members of the Sikh faith. UPI has some details.

Officials say the coverings will only be patted down if traveler permits it. Instead the person can opt to pat down their own head covering, and then have their hands swabbed with a cotton cloth to check for chemical residue.

The Sikh Coalition welcomes the policy change because it respects religious pluralism and protects national security.

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Here is the text of the President's remarks at the Dalai Lama's Congressional Medal ceremony, in which he tied the occasion to the cause of religious freedom. Baptist Joint Committee director Brent Walker, who was in attendance at the event, writes at the Washington Post's On Faith site about the Tibetan leader's contention that all major religions are essentially the same in offering peace and love as major tenets.

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Today's NYTimes reports on yesterday's decision by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals supporting the right of an a NY Orthodox Jewish school to construct a new building.

In its ruling yesterday, the three-judge federal panel said the Zoning Board of Appeals of the affluent Westchester County village exhibited “an arbitrary blindness to the facts” in 2002 when it denied an application by the Orthodox school, the Westchester Day School, to build a new, 20-room school building.

Religious groups have embraced the Religious Land Use law as a bulwark against what they see as the meddling of government bureaucracies, while opponents see it as giving too much power to religious groups in deciding how the local landscape evolves.

While various court decisions since 2001 have come down on different sides of that balance of power, yesterday’s decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was viewed as a clear victory for the religious side.

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Earlier a panel of the 9th Circuit agreed with a group of Native American tribes in the San Francisco Peaks area that under RFRA a proposed expansion of a popular ski resort, which would use treated sewage to create artificial snow, would violate the rights of the Hopis, Navajos and others who use the peaks and the purity of its water as a part of religious ceremony and belief. Today, however, the entire 9th Circuit agreed to re-hear the case.

At the time of original panel's decision, I especially enjoyed this passage that seems especially compelling. It will be interesting to see how, or if, the en banc Court might disagree:

Even if there is a substantial threat that the Snowbowl will close entirely as a commercial ski area, we are not convinced that there is a compelling governmental interest in allowing the Snowbowl to make artificial snow from treated sewage effluent to avoid that result. We are struck by the obvious fact that the Peaks are located in a desert. It is (and always has been) predictable that some winters will be dry.

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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking at the Villanova Law School, says his faith does not directly impact his judicial decisions.

"Just as there is no 'Catholic' way to cook a hamburger," he said to a murmur of laughter, "I am hard-pressed to tell you of a single opinion of mine that would have come out differently if I were not Catholic."

Nonetheless, he continued, his Catholic faith obliges him to abide by two "commands" in his life and his work as a judge.

" 'Be thou perfect as thy heavenly Father is perfect.' And 'Thou shalt not lie,' " he said.

Those principles, he said, call him to be a strict constructionist of the law, one who does not "distort prior cases" or the Constitution in order to assert that certain rights are guaranteed under law.

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Angering the government of China, President Bush is meeting with the Dalai Lama in conjunction with the Buddhist leader's receipt of the Congressional Gold Medal. In a press briefing this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino was asked about the message this decision may send.

Q You heard what the Chinese Foreign Minister said about violating international relations and wounded feelings with China. The Dalai Lama's Special Envoy says that this meeting sends a message that people have not forgotten about Tibet, and that it is also a message -- a powerful message, according to him, to China, that the Dalai Lama is not going to go away. Does the President believe that this meeting sends that sort of message to China?

MS. PERINO: I think that what the President would believe is that people are going to look at this meeting in several different ways, and it's almost taking on a life of its own. The President has met with the Dalai Lama before. He is a great spiritual leader. The President wants to meet with him. The President believes that people all over the world should be able to express their religion and practice their religion in freedom. And that's why the President wants to meet with him. He believes he should be honored as a great spiritual leader.

Posted by Don Byrd at 09:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Associated Press reports on the efforts of Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) to organize church-goers on behalf of his campaign, without improperly using the church or its resources.

The invitation appeared one Sunday in Joanna Chase's church bulletin: Come to a "faith forum" and join a conversation about the intersection of religion and politics.

Living in New Hampshire, Chase is accustomed to pitches from presidential hopefuls, especially those focusing on values-voting Republicans. But this one came from the team of a Democrat, Sen. Barack Obama.

The candidate himself wasn't on the bill. But about 50 people showed up to talk about the war, poverty and trying to seize back the moral mantle some in the GOP claim. The night also featured an Obama video and a campaign altar call — an invitation to become a "congregation contact" and rally support for the candidate.
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The campaign is now in the midst of a "40 Days of Faith and Family" drive of forums, gospel concerts and candidate appearances in South Carolina...
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(Obama's religious affairs director Joshua) DuBois said the campaign is clear that political organizing cannot take place within houses of worship, which would land them in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service. The goal is to reach friends and family, some of them church members, he said.

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Alabama has become the first state to agree on a textbook for the study of the Bible as literature in public high schools. Thanks for Howard Friedman at Religion Clause for pointing to this press release from the Bible Literacy Project announcing their book as the statewide text.

On October 11, 2007, the Alabama School Board designated "The Bible and Its Influence" as a comprehensive literature curriculum for the state. This designation means the textbook is "sufficient to be used as the sole textbook/program for a particular grade or course and meeting 80% or more of the standards outlined in the state course of study and/or is sufficient to be used as the sole textbook for an elective course."

"Our textbook is the only Bible curriculum that has been approved in this way," continued Stetson. "All 543 high schools in Alabama will soon be provided with the list of approved curricula, including ours. This approval will have a major impact outside of the state of Alabama as well, as this is yet another indication of the substantial academic legitimacy of our curriculum."

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3 Memphis churches are being charged with improper campaign intervention in an ongoing mayoral race, according to a complaint filed last week by Americans United. The Memphis Commercial-Appeal has the story:

Pastor Brandon Porter of Greater Community Temple, for example, told his congregation that while the church typically did not open up the pulpit for political speeches, he did so for Herenton, whom Porter called a "friend of this ministry" and the "greatest mayor in the world."

At Trinity, Bishop Melvin Nalley "enthusiastically supported Chumney," according to the newspaper's account.

"We need someone who is going to bring economic development, someone who does not bow down. ... Ms. Chumney can do that," Nalley said.

Posted by Don Byrd at 04:26 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Author and friend-of-the-Baptist Joint Committee, Buzz Thomas, writes in today's USAToday about the role of religion in the Constitution, responding to a recent troubling poll and - perhaps - the wrong-headed assertions that have followed, from candidates, movie reviewers and kickboxers alike.

[T]he framers were concerned about the corrupting influence the institutions of church and state have on each other when either becomes too cozy. These guys knew their history. They had witnessed the blood shed by governments in the name of religion. Europe was nearly destroyed by it. They also knew their politics. The Baptists, Presbyterians and other Evangelicals were fed up with religion that was "established" by the state (as was the Anglican Church in many Southern colonies and the Congregational Church in New England) and were determined to achieve full-throttle religious freedom for all — believers and non-believers alike. It was prominent Virginia Baptist John Leland who declared, "The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever!" Pastor Leland went on to assert that "the fondness of magistrates to foster Christianity has done it more harm than all the persecutions ever did." Leland and his Baptist colleagues played a key role in helping persuade Madison to support a federal Bill of Rights guaranteeing liberty of conscience for all.

Posted by Don Byrd at 01:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A new Associated Press report delves into the issues surrounding faith-based prison rehabilitation programs. The short version: the state saves money and - depending on who you ask - may or may not see impressive outcome rates when faith-based, self-financing groups are given the reins to program prisoners' day while incarcerated, and coordinate their eventual re-integration into society.

"A bunch of cats in prison, they never had anyone show them love — even their mother and father," said Anzetta Smith, who served 18 years for attempted murder before graduating from (Texas' Carol) Vance this year. "You get in the program, and everybody shows you love."

Impressed by the Vance operation, Texas officials have opened a dozen faith-based dorms elsewhere in the state, accommodating some 1,300 inmates. At one dorm, at the maximum-security Allred prison near Wichita Falls, infractions by the inmates dropped more than 90 percent once they entered the program.

This is an area where we should be able to have both: protections for religious liberty against coercion or sectarian preference and opportunities for willing prisoners to participate in effective religious programs. Prisoners should have true choice in participation, religious activities should not be financed by the state, and the state should not leave its own obligation for church groups to pick up the slack.

Prisoner rehabilitation is an important responsibility of the state. Prisoner outreach is an important religious ministry for Christians, and those of other faiths. And protecting religious liberty through constitutional safeguards is important for all of us. All three concerns can and should be preserved.

Posted by Don Byrd at 03:58 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

The Illinois legislature has voted to require public schools to start with a moment of silence for "silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day," overriding Governor Blagojevich's veto. The Chicago Sun-Times has more:

“It may not mandate prayer, but that’s what it’s about,” said Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie), who voted against the plan.

But supporters of the legislation, backed by Concerned Christian Americans and the Illinois Family Institute, said it would help young people come to terms with the everyday stresses in their lives.

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