I agree entirely; I mention this partly because I occasionally hear pork bans as examples of quintessential violations of the Establishment Clause, though I don't think they would be.
To be sure, a general pork ban might have a different motivation than a prison decision not to serve pork. But at the same time even a general pork ban could certainly be an attempt to accommodate a religious group by minimizing the risk that its members will accidentally ingest pork (or that its members might be put in a position where their employment would require the handling or even sampling of pork). And just as the state of California is free to ban the sale of horsemeat for human consumption (as it did in 1998), so it should be free to ban the sale of pork - not that I'd ever endorse that as a policy matter! Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Ira Lupu Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 4:32 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: Re: Court upholds prison no-pork policy against Establishment Clause challenge Is this outcome surprising in any way? Does anyone on the list believe that the court got this wrong? (I certainly don't). If Congress overrode HHS and eliminated pregnancy prevention services from mandatory coverage by employers under the Affordable Care Act, wouldn't the analysis be just the same (imposition of a uniform policy to avoid religious conflict, avoid any need to create controversial exceptions for religious entities, avoid piece-meal litigation, and ease administration of the overall scheme), even though the impetus for change derived from a demand by some for religious accommodation? On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 6:48 PM, Volokh, Eugene <vol...@law.ucla.edu<mailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu>> wrote: River v. Mohr (N.D. Ohio Apr. 5, 2012), http://volokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/RiversvMohr.pdf . Eugene _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Ira C. Lupu F. Elwood & Eleanor Davis Professor of Law George Washington University Law School 2000 H St., NW Washington, DC 20052 (202)994-7053 My SSRN papers are here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.