Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Human rights refers to the “basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled.” Read more
C. Welton Gaddy: Between Religion and Politics (Chautauqua Institution)
Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of The Interfaith Alliance and whose past leadership roles include president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and chair of the Pastoral Leadership Commission of the Baptist World Alliance, discusses the philosophy and implications of secularism and the importance of a relationship between religion and politics.
Jefferson and Mason: From Toleration to Freedom (Chautauqua Institution)
Charles Haynes, senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, has a conversation with actors portraying George Mason and Thomas Jefferson on the subject of universal rights and the free exercise of religion.
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ReligiousLiberty.TV , launched in June 2008, is a leading independent online resource for news, information, commentary, and insights on contemporary issues involving the free exercise and establishment clauses of the United States Constitution. Today’s rapidly evolving Constitutional landscape has led to countless ambiguities and uncertainties in legislation, public policy, and jurisprudence and has provided immediate opportunities for concerned citizens, religious leaders, elected officials, and attorneys to increase knowledge about these issues while ensuring that independent viewpoints are protected.
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Soldiers Fight a Battle of Conscience
The Truth Commission on Conscience in War is a group of religious leaders and scholars who have joined together to discuss the theory of just war, international law and freedom of conscience during times of war.
The 70-member commission recently held a public hearing at Riverside Church, where soldiers spoke about their war experiences. The hearing, inspired by a documentary, Soldiers of Conscience, launched a six-month campaign that aims to spur discussion of issues of war and conscience.
Should Europe recognize Sunday as the official day of rest? (BBC Video)
Dr. Michael Schluter, founder of Keep Sunday Special, debates business entrepreneurs and representatives of other faith groups on the issue of whether Europe should adopt Sunday as a uniform day of rest.
Part I
Part II
Related stories:
ANALYSIS: European Sunday Weekly Rest Day Legislation Remains Unlawful
“This matter deserves a full debate engaging all the parties concerned and in particular the minority groups so that the legal position is made clear and that the possible future religious ramifications of this proposed Legislation are considered in light of the aims and objectives of the European Union.” Special …
Conference to Relaunch ‘Sunday Protection’ at European Level to be Held (COMECE)
At RLTV we have been watching developments of this issue for over a year. A coalition of churches and labor unions is again working toward the goal of a European Sunday rest law. Editor EXCERPT: A Conference to relaunch the debate on Sunday protection at European level will be held on 24 March …
The Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), COMECE (the Bishops Conference of the European Community), and the Church of England are calling upon the European Union Parliament to approve a Written Declaration on “on the protection of a work-free Sunday as an essential pillar of the European Social Model and as …
European Church leaders call for protection of ‘Sunday rest’ (SofiaEcho)
0:42 Sat 22 Nov 2008 - Clive Leviev-Sawyer Representatives of two European church groupings, in a meeting with a senior representative of the French presidency of the European Union, expressed concern about the rights of minorities around the world, especially where Christian minorities are persecuted, and discussed “the dramatic situation of Iraqi Christians …
The following is from Liberty, published by General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists Religious Liberty Bureau, National Religious Liberty Association, Religious Liberty Association of America, Published by Review and Herald Pub. Association, 1908. Click here to see the original online. The Outlook for a Sunday Law in California J. O. CORLISS California …
Arrests Made in Christian Militia Police-Killing Plot (CBN)
EXCERPT:
Members of a paramilitary group have been charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and wage war against the United States — and they use God as their reasoning.
The group is active in three Midwest states. The FBI believes some of its members were about to launch a massacre.
Read more: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2010/March/Arrests-Made-in-Christian-Militia-Police-Killing-Plot/
Stephen Colbert Tests Columbia Prof On Textbooks (Comedy Central)
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| I’s on Edjukashun – Texas School Board | ||||
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The Texas State Board of Education has voted to radically alter textbook lessons for future generations, removing from curricula separation of church and state and references to Thomas Jefferson. In response, Stephen Colbert had textbook author and Columbia professor Eric Foner on his show Tuesday night to talk textbooks and “to answer for his liberal crimes.”
9th Circuit Holds ‘Ministerial Exception’ Bars Seminarian Employment Case
Rosas v. Corp. of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, Case No. 09-35003 (C.A. 9, Mar. 16, 2010)
EXCERPT:
“The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach.” Everson v. Bd. of Educ., 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947). The interplay between the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses creates an exception to an otherwise fully applicable statute if the statute would interfere with a religious organization’s employment decisions regarding its ministers. Bollard v. Cal. Province of the Soc’y of Jesus, 196 F.3d 940, 944, 946-47 (9th Cir. 1999). This “ministerial exception” helps to preserve the wall between church and state from even the mundane government intrusion presented here. In this case, plaintiff Cesar Rosas seeks pay for the overtime hours he worked as a seminarian in a Catholic church in Washington. The district court correctly determined that the ministerial exception bars Rosas’s claim and dismissed the case on the pleadings. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.
Cesar Rosas and Jesus Alcazar were Catholic seminarians in Mexico. The Catholic Church required them to participate in a ministry training program at St. Mary Catholic Church in Marysville, Washington as their next step in becoming ordained priests. At St. Mary, Rosas and Alcazar allegedly suffered retaliation for claiming that Father Yanez sexually harassed Alcazar, and they eventually sued Father Yanez and the Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle (“defendants”) under Title VII. In addition, Rosas and Alcazar sued under supplemental jurisdiction for violations of Washington’s Minimum Wage Act for failure to pay overtime wages. See Wash. Rev. Code § 49.46.130. The district court dismissed the overtime wage claims on the pleadings, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c), and Rosas’s overtime wage claim is the only issue on appeal.
Because the judgment was on the pleadings, the pleadings alone must be sufficient to support the district court’s judgment. We thus base our decision on the very few allegations in Rosas’s complaint. Rosas alleges as follows:
1.3 . . . The Corporation of the Catholic Archbishop of Seattle hosted [Rosas] as [a] participant[ ] in a training/pastoral ministry program for the priesthood. 2.2 Cesar Rosas entered the seminary to become a Catholic priest in 1995 in Mexico.
2.3 As part of [his] preparation for ordination into the priesthood, the Catholic Church required [Rosas] to engage in a ministerial placement outside [his] diocese, under the supervision of a pastor of the parish into which [he was] placed. The Archdiocese of Seattle sends seminarians to Mexico and has Mexican seminarians come to its parishes. [Rosas was] placed in St. Mary Parish in Marysville, Washington under the supervision of defendant Fr. Horatio Yanez.
2.10 . . . [Rosas] was hired to do maintenance of the church and also assisted with Mass. He . . . worked many overtime hours he was not compensated for.
Read the full decision which includes a primer on the ‘ministerial exception’ at http://www.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0310%2F09-35003
Washington State Bill to Unionize Child Care Centers Dies in Committee
Washington State Bill to Unionize Child Care Centers Dies in Committee
We have good news from the State of Washington. You may have read our last newsletter about the bill that labor unions were trying to pass that would unionize private child care centers, and including faith-based preschools, and categorize their workers as government employees for purposes of union due, so long as they accepted children who received government subsidies in order to attend.
Labor unions recently passed similar legislation in Michigan where day care providers were surprised to find union dues missing from their paychecks.
Thanks to the good work of Greg Hamilton, the President of the Northwest Religious Liberty Association and RLTV advisory board member and others who leapt into action against this bill which could have ushered in a state takeover of religious child care centers, the bill is dead this session.
This is the latest in a series of union efforts to force themselves into non-union workplaces by any means necessary. The Washington bill was a stealthy attack, and Greg worked many high density hours to bring this law to its knees and defeat the unions. The unions were surprised by their defeat in this bill, since they full expected to take control in state day care centers like they had done in other states, and we will be watching to see if they try to sneak the bill in another way, or to write similar legislation next year.
As labor unions continue to lose influence in other sectors of the economy due to a combination of decreased domestic manufacturing and state labor laws that already achieve many of their goals, we can expect them to continue to attempt to insert themselves in industries where they have not been invited through traditional means.
(For more information visit the Northwest Religious Liberty Association at http://www.nrla.com)
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Related Article
By Michael D. Peabody, Esq. So what’s the biggest threat to religious liberty? According to J. Brent Walker, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, the answer is found in the strings attached to government funding of religious activity. Earlier this month, during a speech for the Jewish …
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