In 3 states, the courts continue to give religious groups First Amendment
protection from abuse claims.
Missouri, Wisconsin, and Utah. A majority of states have rejected such
arguments. A number have not
yet ruled. The three states to embrace such a theory have misread the First
Amendment, as I discuss
in (shameless plug) my article on The Licentiousness in Religious
Organizations...
RFRA, as we all know, does not mirror the First Amendment, and the North Dakota
RFRA would have triggered
strict scrutiny even without a showing that the burden was "substantial" -- so
we can be certain that it could
be more problematic in child sex abuse and medical neglect cases.
Marci
Marci A. Hamilton
Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Yeshiva University
55 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 790-0215
hamilto...@aol.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Arthur Spitzer <artspit...@gmail.com>
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
Sent: Wed, Jun 13, 2012 10:40 pm
Subject: Re: Defeat of RFRA constitutional amendment in North Dakota
"Their lawyers embrace the First Amendment ... to avoid responsiblity for child
sex abuse all the time." So should we repeal the First Amendment? Do courts
accept these arguments?
Art Spitzer
On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 9:28 PM, <hamilto...@aol.com> wrote:
It opens the door to churches using RFRA as a defense to discovery, liability,
and penalties in chid sex abuse
cases. And that means less deterrence. Their lawyers embrace the First
Amendment and RFRAs to avoid responsiblity for child sex abuse all the time.
Marci
Marci A. Hamilton
Paul R. Verkuil Chair in Public Law
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Yeshiva University
55 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 790-0215
hamilto...@aol.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Lawyer2974 <lawyer2...@aol.com>
To: religionlaw <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>
Sent: Wed, Jun 13, 2012 5:21 pm
Subject: Re: Defeat of RFRA constitutional amendment in North Dakota
RFRA opens the door to child sex abuse or medical neglect? Really?!
--Don Clark
Nationwide Special Counsel
United Church of Christ
In a message dated 6/13/2012 3:55:26 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
hamilto...@aol.com writes:
The truth is that gay rights and child protection communities went all out in
North Dakota. Most Americans when they understand that a RFRA opens the door
to discrimination or child sex abuse or medical neglect quickly cool on the
extremism of a RFRA. The difference is public education
Marci
On Jun 13, 2012, at 4:39 PM, "Douglas Laycock" <dlayc...@virginia.edu> wrote:
NARAL and Planned Parenthood spent a lot of money in a small market to
defeat this. They did not spend that kind of money in Alabama, so far as I
know. There have been shrill opponents in of state RFRAs in various
legislatures, but I am not aware of this kind of effort by NARAL or Planned
Parenthood.
Why now and not before? The polarization over sexual morality is the larger
cause, and the pending religious liberty claims specifically about
contraception and emergency contraception are the most immediate and obvious
cause. NARAL and Planned Parenthood now view religious liberty as a bad
thing, because it empowers the enemy and puts outside limits on their
agenda.
Shameless plug: I wrote about this in general terms, pre North Dakota, in
Sex, Atheism, and the Free Exercise of Religion, 88 U. Detroit Mercy L.
Rev. 407 (2011):
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/udetmr88&id=417&collection=usjournals&index=journals/udetmr
Douglas Laycock
Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Virginia Law School
580 Massie Road
Charlottesville, VA 22903
434-243-8546
From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Vance R. Koven
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 4:23 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Defeat of RFRA constitutional amendment in North Dakota
Behind NARAL's many inaccuracies lies a hint of what I believe may be the
sociological basis for answering Eugene's question. What follows is purely
speculative on my part, so just treat it as a hypothesis.
The initial RFRA push was, speaking broadly, in line with a sense by
evangelical Christians that their agendas, of various types, were
threatened by secularists ascendant in Washington and among other political
elites.That was then and this is now.
Apart from liberal Connecticut and Catholic-dominated Rhode Island, most of
the state RFRA enactments were in fairly conservative, heartland states.
Since a lot of other states have achieved the same effect by judicial
decision or existing constitutional provisions, the leftovers have to be
looked at as a discrete grouping. The cross-hatched states, with the
exception of New Hampshire, are all liberal, secularist places where you
would expect Smith to be popular among policy-makers and not totally
anathema to voters.
The remaining states without any RFRA-like policies but that haven't firmly
declared themselves as following Smith, with the exceptions of California,
Hawaii and Vermont, are also mostly conservative heartland states, but they
now have a different actuating fear, which I think is the fear (rational or
not) of Islamic demands for religious-cultural exceptions from generally
applicable laws. This fear directly offsets the fears of evangelical
Christians, and is probably shared by a good number of them. NARAL's
reference to domestic violence and child abuse look, in that context, like
code words for the domestic-relations aspects of Sharia. Obviously, no RFRA
statute immunizes domestic violence, but if NARAL said in so many words
what it thought the voters really wanted to hear, its anti-Islamic thrust
would be too obvious.
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--
Arthur B. Spitzer
Legal Director
American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation's Capital
4301 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 434
Washington, D.C. 20008
Tel. 202-457-0800
www.aclu-nca.org
artspit...@gmail.com
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