Re: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and religion

2012-01-26 Thread David Cruz 
"Is voter intimidation the same as choosing members?"  Wouldn't it depend on 
whether we think civil authorities are permitted under the Constitution to 
examine the reasons that a church (to use too narrow a word) has for excluding 
persons from membership?  I'm not denying that their may be competing rights 
here.  But IF the nature of the free exercise and establishment limitations 
upon government does not let it look at reasons for what might be considered 
purely religious decisions (who is a minister, who is a parishioner, who may 
take communion), which might be one conclusion derived from Dale + 
Hosana-Tabor, then the nature of the right would seem to take lexical priority 
over voter intimidation.  Would the argument to the contrary be that the harm 
to free and fair elections is so much greater than the harm an individual 
victim of employment discrimination faces that government CAN legislate that 
reason out of bounds?  Could the state in a divorce settlement favor the 
ex-spouse who was a victim of the other's attempt to intimidate him or her into 
not voting for a certain party's candidate for President with the threat of 
divorce?  If not, why would threats to divorce someone be constitutionally 
protected and threats to expel someone from a church not be?  I do see a real 
problem where Marci is inquiring, but I am not yet sure of the answer.

David B. Cruz
Professor of Law
University of Southern California Gould School of Law
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0071
U.S.A.

From: Marci Hamilton mailto:hamilto...@aol.com>>
Reply-To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics 
mailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:41:15 -0800
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics 
mailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>>
Cc: "religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu" 
mailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>>
Subject: Re: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and 
religion

Hosanna Tabor does not establish "autonomy" for churches.   Only that they may 
avoid discrimination lawsuits by those who are ministers.   There is no 
autonomy from contract or tort claims even.
Is voter intimidation the same as choosing members?

___
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.

Re: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and religion

2012-01-26 Thread Marc Stern 
Presumably a political party could do the same and probably lots of other 
ideological organizations could too given the Boy scout decision resting on 
freedom of ideological non- association.
Marc

From: Finkelman, Paul  
[mailto:paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 09:09 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics 
Subject: RE: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and 
religion

Marci:

Presumably there is a free exercise right to expel people from your church for 
having the wrong political ideas.  So, I suppose if the church leaders say "you 
must support candidate x" and a member does not, and openly supports "y" then 
it is a free exercise right for the Church to expel the member.



*
Paul Finkelman, Ph.D.
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208

518-445-3386 (p)
518-445-3363 (f)

paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu
www.paulfinkelman.com
*


From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] 
on behalf of Marci Hamilton [hamilto...@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 8:51 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Cc: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and 
religion

Ok, I'll bite.   Why is an anti-coercion statute obviously unconstitutional?

Marci


On Jan 24, 2012, at 4:45 PM, "Volokh, Eugene" 
mailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu>> wrote:

An Arkansas 1891 statute:  “No person shall coerce, intimidate or unduly 
influence, any elector to vote for or against the nominee of any political 
party, or for or against any particular question or candidate, by any threat or 
warning of personal violence or injury, or by any threat or warning of 
ejectment from rented or leased premises, or by the foreclosure of any mortgage 
or deed of trust, or of any action at law or equity, or of discharge from 
employment, or of expulsion from membership in any church, lodge, secret order 
or benevolent society, or by any oath, or affirmation or secret written 
pledge.”  I assume such a statute, as applied to churches, would be 
unconstitutional today, and might even have generally been seen as 
unconstitutional back then, though I have seen no cases interpreting it.

Interestingly, a North Carolina statute that didn’t mention churches -- “Any 
person who shall discharge from employment, withdraw patronage from, or 
otherwise injure, threaten, oppress or attempt to intimidate any qualified 
voter of the state, because of the vote such voter may or may not have cast in 
any election, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor” -- was held in 1901 to not be 
able applicable to expulsion from churches based on a person’s vote.  See State 
v. Rogers, 38 S.E. 34 (N.C. 1901), 
http://volokh.com/2012/01/23/interesting-old-prosecution-for-expelling-someone-from-a-church-based-on-how-he-voted/
 .

Eugene

___
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.
___
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.

Re: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and religion

2012-01-26 Thread Richard Foltin 
Application of freedom of association aside, for a church, there's now 
Hosanna-Tabor. The religious autonomy interest that precludes the state from 
ever telling a church whom its minister shall be could well extent to their 
right to decide who their members are.

Richard


From: Marci Hamilton [mailto:hamilto...@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 09:38 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics 
Cc: religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu 
Subject: Re: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and 
religion

While i understand the point, i wonder about it.  Dale does not stand for the 
proposition that an organization can coerce or threaten an individual to change 
their vote in an election.Voter intimidation was an extremely serious 
problem during the Reconstruction era.   Don't we have competing constitutional 
rights here?   If the prevailing interpretation on this thread is correct, 
religious groups could be the primary vehicle for voter intimidation because of 
their protected statusI would have thought voter intimidation could be off 
limits even to churches.It is an impermissible act.

Marci

On Jan 24, 2012, at 9:18 PM, Marc Stern mailto:ste...@ajc.org>> 
wrote:

Presumably a political party could do the same and probably lots of other 
ideological organizations could too given the Boy scout decision resting on 
freedom of ideological non- association.
Marc

From: Finkelman, Paul 
mailto:paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu>> 
[mailto:paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 09:09 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics 
mailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>>
Subject: RE: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and 
religion

Marci:

Presumably there is a free exercise right to expel people from your church for 
having the wrong political ideas.  So, I suppose if the church leaders say "you 
must support candidate x" and a member does not, and openly supports "y" then 
it is a free exercise right for the Church to expel the member.



*
Paul Finkelman, Ph.D.
President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law
Albany Law School
80 New Scotland Avenue
Albany, NY 12208

518-445-3386 (p)
518-445-3363 (f)

paul.finkel...@albanylaw.edu
www.paulfinkelman.com
*


From: 
religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu 
[religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] 
on behalf of Marci Hamilton [hamilto...@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 8:51 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Cc: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Interesting late 1800s Arkansas law related to government and 
religion

Ok, I'll bite.   Why is an anti-coercion statute obviously unconstitutional?

Marci


On Jan 24, 2012, at 4:45 PM, "Volokh, Eugene" 
mailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu>> wrote:

An Arkansas 1891 statute:  “No person shall coerce, intimidate or unduly 
influence, any elector to vote for or against the nominee of any political 
party, or for or against any particular question or candidate, by any threat or 
warning of personal violence or injury, or by any threat or warning of 
ejectment from rented or leased premises, or by the foreclosure of any mortgage 
or deed of trust, or of any action at law or equity, or of discharge from 
employment, or of expulsion from membership in any church, lodge, secret order 
or benevolent society, or by any oath, or affirmation or secret written 
pledge.”  I assume such a statute, as applied to churches, would be 
unconstitutional today, and might even have generally been seen as 
unconstitutional back then, though I have seen no cases interpreting it.

Interestingly, a North Carolina statute that didn’t mention churches -- “Any 
person who shall discharge from employment, withdraw patronage from, or 
otherwise injure, threaten, oppress or attempt to intimidate any qualified 
voter of the state, because of the vote such voter may or may not have cast in 
any election, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor” -- was held in 1901 to not be 
able applicable to expulsion from churches based on a person’s vote.  See State 
v. Rogers, 38 S.E. 34 (N.C. 1901), 
http://volokh.com/2012/01/23/interesting-old-prosecution-for-expelling-someone-from-a-church-based-on-how-he-voted/
 .

Eugene

___
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 l