Legal Issues

By David Hamstra – It is tempting to resolve the question in favor of one or the other depending on what our moral intuitions tell us about the way the world should be, but to do so, as I will argue later, is to impose upon the weak the vision of morality held by the powerful, putting our society on a trajectory towards totalitarianism. Instead, I want to propose an principled way to approach these cases that will hopefully allow those on either side to find common ground.

This October the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in Town of Greece v. Galloway, a case that could change the way that prayers are conducted in legislative proceedings. The Court will determine whether city council rules, which do not openly discriminate against non-Christians or permit prayer to be used to promote a particular religion, are unconstitutional when most of the people offering the prayers are Christians.

Yesterday, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment does not protect a photographer’s decision not to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony even if it would violate the photographer’s deeply held religious beliefs.

Calls for protecting “religious liberty” have expanded beyond school prayer and religious monuments on government property to become a rallying call for the Christian right in America following the U.S. […]

The story of Savonarola is not a lesson in the necessity of violence for a successful revolution, but rather a lesson in the dangerous consequences of speaking truth to power.

Neither Hollingsworth nor Windsor demand that any church, even in states that allow gay marriage, be forced to conduct gay weddings. Moreover, these decisions do not affect the ability of churches to decry homosexuality or homosexual conduct as immoral.

By Michael Peabody – On Monday, June 24, 2013 the U.S. Supreme Court issued two 5-4 decisions that will make it more difficult for plaintiffs to prove that their employers violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII is the federal law designed to protect employees from discrimination on the basis of factors such as race, sex, and religion.

By Jason Hines – Now the clock is ticking for the group because there are KY tourism tax incentives for the project that are set to expire in May of 2014. The longer it takes to open the park, the less the group can receive in rebates. Under the current plan, the group can receive up to 25% of the cost of the project over ten years.

This week, two members of the North Carolina House of Representatives submitted a resolution which would declare that “the Constitution of the United States of America does not prohibit states or their subsidiaries from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.” In other words, the legislation declared that that the state could make its own laws about religion and the federal government would not be able to stop them. Although the resolution is not likely to be approved, it does deserve some serious examination as it reflects a common argument arising in the religious right that the Establishment Clause does not apply to the states.

Students at Stanford University School of Law have a unique opportunity to participate in the nation’s only law-school based clinic program that focuses on issues regarding religious freedom and accommodation.