Some possibly disjointed thoughts from my minister/chaplain/lawyer brain . .
.
Several in this discussion have used the phrase "withdraw the power to
solemnize civil marriages from churches" or similar language. I think a
more accurate-even if cumbersome-phrase might be "the power to perform
Thanks very much, Steve. Two quick responses. First, with respect to
withdrawing civil-solemnization status just from churches that refuse to marry
same-sex couples: I still think that that given the easy availability of other
marriage officiators, and the assertion (which seems right to me) t
Roger Severino asks why I think states won't withdraw the power to
solemnize civil marriages from churches. My answer is that I assume most state
legislators were married by clergy, and want their children and grandchildren
to be able to be married by clergy, and I don't think it's likely that
si
I'm puzzled why there would be significant Establishment
Clause problems when teachers wear Christian religious symbols. Even
fairly young children, I take it, must realize that lots of people wear
things because they like them, not because their employer or the
government or society li
The Webb case brings to mind an ongoing matter involving Kevin
Harrington -- a turbaned Sikh who was told by the New York
Metropolitan Transportation Agency (MTA) that he could no longer wear
his turban as a train operator (a position within full view of the
public), and that if he still insisted o
Thanks, Tom, I appreciate these good and valid points. If a state gives
heightened scrutiny to sexual orientation, I suppose there would be an
argument that blanket discrimination against gays and lesians might be
different than the sorts of discretionary decisions churches already make as
you des
I would describe the problem in a slightly different way than John does
although I think his break down of the issues is quite helpful.
In most cases wearing religious garb fulfills religious obligations and
incidentally communicates a message identifying the person wearing the garb as
a member
Churches can and do refuse to perform the marriages of those who the clergyman
thinks are not ready, or who don't have some connection to the church, or who
don't go through a religious counseling class, etc., although all those people
are entitled to civil marriage. So far as I can see, almost
Doug's concerns are certainly legitimate ones, and I suspect few would disagree
with the propositions that:
(a) a specific religious exclusion like a garb statute is more worrisome than
"neutral" laws under Smith (as the Police Directive in Webb apparently was), and
(b) courts should certainly
I think that hostility to religion in general, or to conservative religion in
general, or to all religions that are in conflict with the secular culture --
the reach of the bias will vary from person to person -- is a large part of why
these laws stay on the books and why some administrators s
It occurs to me that I should offer an additional point before my omission is
pointed out by others: Re the statement below that it is not crazy to think
that in some circumstances "singling out religion" as in a religious garb
statute is not always badly motivated, I neglected to say that I re
In response to Chris's question about the current status of Cooper, "religious
garb statutes," and the like: I haven't looked at these cases in a while, but
my sense is that:
1) if we think of the Federal FE world as divided between Smith and Lukumi, a
specific ban on religious garb would hav
In a message dated 4/8/2009 7:13:09 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
layco...@umich.edu writes:
And relating to what
> Professor Finkleman said before, there's actually an allowance for
> "scarves" if they are "black or navy blue," and "captains and above may
> wear white scarves." Perhaps a khima
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