RE: RLUIPA and prisoner conjugal visits
Lee didn't involve outright forced participation in religious exercise. But it did involve circumstances that exerted some social pressure on people to do something that might be seen as participating in a religious practice (standing for a graduation prayer). Here, we have circumstances that would exert extremely strong pressure on people to actual claim to belong to a religious group, and to participate in the practices of that group in order to make that claim seem sincere. Indeed, I should think that the pressure here is far greater than in Lee, and the religious behavior that people would end up participating in as a result of the pressure is far more substantial than in Lee as well. Eugene -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw- boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Eric Rassbach Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2012 3:49 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: RLUIPA and prisoner conjugal visits What religious exercise are the non-religious prisoners being forced to participate in? Lee was not about sincerity. From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edumailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene [vol...@law.ucla.edu] Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2012 6:15 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RLUIPA and prisoner conjugal visits In Pouncil v. Tilton, a prisoner is arguing that he is entitled to conjugal visits under RLUIPA, because he is a Muslim, that marriage is one of the most important institutions in Islam and is incumbent on every Muslim, and that the main duties of a Muslim to his or her spouse are to consummate their marriage to solidify the validity of the marriage and to have sexual relations as a form of worship. See http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2012/11/21/10-16881.pdf, which deals only with the statute of limitations issue in the case. But is it even constitutionally permissible for a prison to give conjugal visits only to people who feel a religious obligation (or motivation) to have sex with their spouses, and deny them to those who lack such a felt religious obligation? I would think that such a policy would create far more pressure to pretend religious belief than what was seen as unconstitutionally coercive in Lee v. Weisman, no? Eugene ___ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edumailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlawhttp://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: High School Student's Religious Objection to Wearing RFID Chip Badge for Student Locator Program
How would we know that we don't already all have RFIDs installed? I understand they are rather unobtrusive. More seriously, presumably government access to voluntarily-installed RFIDs would have to be subject to reasonable expectations of privacy, and at least at this point most people don't expect that their kids will be tracked all day by their school system as a form of inventory management. Seems a bit like the thermal imaging situation, though I am far from knowledgeable about the relevant Fourth Amendment law. On the other hand, we are already tracked all the time, by cookies, accounts, internet providers, etc., something we willingly allow in order to gain access to certain benefits. Perhaps that creates a glidepath towards involuntary government RFID access. From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Sanford Levinson [slevin...@law.utexas.edu] Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 10:29 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: High School Student's Religious Objection to Wearing RFID Chip Badge for Student Locator Program For what it is worth, at a Thanksgiving table discussion of the issue, which included my daughter Meira, who has taught in the public schools in Atlanta and Boston and who now teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (and who has written a terrific book of her own on civic education, No Citizen Left Behind), there was agreement that 50 years from now newborns will probably receive a chip that will be activated throughout their lives for a variety of purposes (including, no doubt, surveillance), and it will be accepted as a given. That being said, though both of my daughters could see a rationale for the school system's policy--Meira pointed out that teachers are personally liable if a student under their charge is missing--, they probably wouldn't consent to the policy for their own children (assuming consent is an option. I think what this demonstrates is that this is a closer case than I initially thought, though I'm still perturbed by the lesson it teaches vu! lnerable children about their lack of rights. Surely it violates the First Amendment to punish the child for passing out leaflets objecting to the policy. sandy -Original Message- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 3:08 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: High School Student's Religious Objection to Wearing RFID Chip Badge for Student Locator Program I appreciate Doug's point, but I wonder whether the difference between children and adults might actually be especially significant here. After all, when it comes to adults, we don't order them to go to school, or allow the police to pick them up in order to bring them home to their parents, or give their parents the right to withhold their property if they come home late or fail to keep the parent posted about where they are. As courts have pointed out, a child -- unlike an adult -- is always in someone's custody, in the sense that someone (whether parent, school official, or what have you) is entitled to control the child's actions in ways that are not tolerated as to adults. Children aren't in the custody of the prisons or the pretrial release system; but they are in the custody of someone. The question is whether the propriety of these restrictions on liberty of movement (applicable to children and to others) also supports restrictions on liberty from surveillance of one's movements. I'm inclined to say that it does, though I might be mistaken. Eugene -Original Message- From: Douglas Laycock [mailto:dlayc...@virginia.edu] Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 12:02 PM To: Law Religion issues for Law Academics; Volokh, Eugene Subject: Re: High School Student's Religious Objection to Wearing RFID Chip Badge for Student Locator Program It seems to me that Eugene is talking about ends, and that this is a dispute about means. Of course we want students to attend school, we generally want them to comply with the rules, and we generally want adults and students alike to comply with the law. But we do not in this country use continuous surveillance as a means to those ends. Continuous surveillance, typically implemented with ankle bracelets, is reserved for people already convicted, or at least indicted, for serious crime -- for people who could be confined to jail or prison, and who are getting a break by being released subject to continuous surveillance. The rights of children are not always equal to the rights of adults. But I would want to see much stronger justification before creating a student exception to something so fundamental. As Marc Stern said, this is like the GPS device planted on a car --
Re: RLUIPA and prisoner conjugal visits
This is a case where the religious claim aligns to closely with self interest. It would be neither formally nor substantively neutral to allow this claim, and it would give rise to many false claims of conversion and perhaps even some genuine conversions. On Sun, 25 Nov 2012 15:15:29 -0800 Volokh, Eugene vol...@law.ucla.edu wrote: In Pouncil v. Tilton, a prisoner is arguing that he is entitled to conjugal visits under RLUIPA, because he is a Muslim, that marriage is one of the most important institutions in Islam and is incumbent on every Muslim, and that the main duties of a Muslim to his or her spouse are to consummate their marriage to solidify the validity of the marriage and to have sexual relations as a form of worship. See http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2012/11/21/10-16881.pdf, which deals only with the statute of limitations issue in the case. But is it even constitutionally permissible for a prison to give conjugal visits only to people who feel a religious obligation (or motivation) to have sex with their spouses, and deny them to those who lack such a felt religious obligation? I would think that such a policy would create far more pressure to pretend religious belief than what was seen as unconstitutionally coercive in Lee v. Weisman, no? Eugene Douglas Laycock Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law University of Virginia Law School 580 Massie Road Charlottesville, VA 22903 434-243-8546 ___ 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.
