Saturday, April 7, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
The Catholic group on campus, Vanderbilt Catholic, begs to differ. Their current president claims that anyone running for an officer position should share the same beliefs as the group. However, this slowly sinks into quicksand with the university’s anti-discrimination policy. Vanderbilt is not the only university facing the same issues.
Vanderbilt is using the defense of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. In this 2010 Supreme Court case, the courts “required the groups to accept all students regardless of their status or beliefs in order to obtain recognition.” Vanderbilt is obviously not the first university to tackle this problem. Colleges in North Carolina, California and New York also have experienced identical or similar concerns.
Ayesha Khan, Legal Director, American United for Separation of Church and State, weighs in on this contested debate and more specifically the Christian Legal Society v. Martinez case.
Professionally, I want to work in diversity public relations. I do not understand why discrimination, especially faith-based discrimination is still relevant. Why can we not look past insignificant details and realize the bigger picture of interconnectedness? This is not just a “Catholic issue”; this applies to all religious groups, regardless of faith or doctrine. Someone’s religious background should not be a determinate in their abilities to perform certain tasks, or any tasks for that matter.
As I mentioned before, this is not just a Catholic issue. This problem is broad reaching and has larger implications for religious groups, not just Catholic, and not just college affiliated. We need to steer away from religious persecution of minorities. To be completely honest, I’m sick of this being something we discuss. We need to make more strides toward a hyper-inclusive American culture.
Christiana Torere
April 2, 2012
According to a t NY time’s article, students using the computers at Camdenton High School in central Missouri have internet access to the web sites for Exodus International, as well as People Can Change, antigay organizations that counsel men and women on how to become heterosexual. Students are upset with the fact that they are able to access discrimination websites against gays but have been denied access to the Web sites of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance against Defamation, or the Gay-Straight Alliance Network.
The students at Camdenton High School have been able to read Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 Supreme Court ruling that upheld a Georgia statute criminalizing sodomy. But they have been blocked from reading Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 Supreme Court ruling that held that laws criminalizing sodomy were unconstitutional.
The decisions to block websites protecting gay rights are not left up to the school superintendent, board members, or the district Web master, instead the district's Web filter determine which sites would be open to students and which would be blocked. Since the passage of the Children's Internet Protection Act in 2000, public schools have been required to use Internet filters that protect students from pornography and obscenity. However, the actual person who created the filter that blocks these pro-gay websites remains unknown. The identity of the person is protected behind URLBlacklist, a company that sells filter software to schools.
Pat Scales of the American Library Association said "These filters are a new version of book-banning or pulling books off the shelf, the difference is this is much more subtle and harder to identify."
Anthony Rothert, a Civil Liberties lawyer based in St. Louis said, “Over the last year, the American Civil Liberties Union has asked officials from hundreds of school districts around the country to make changes in their Internet screening systems to eliminate bias” All agreed to the procedure except for Camdenton High School, which the A.C.L.U. sued last summer.
The lawsuit happens to be the first of its kind. It does not claim that the rural district of 4,200 students purchased the software with the intent of discriminating. Rather, it says, once there were complaints about the filter last year, school officials refused to replace it. An investigator for the A.C.L.U. has been able to figure out how the filter works, but not who developed it.
Camdenton High School has arranged for students wishing to access any pro-gay websites that is blocked by the URLBlacklist filter can file an appeal to the district's Web master.
In a hearing in federal court in October, Thomas Mickes, the lawyer for the Camdenton school district told the judge, "Just because the A.C.L.U. or some other liberal group says, 'Hey, you know, I don't like what you're doing, you've got to change that,' and if we don't change it, then somehow we're showing discrimination, that's not the law. That would be crazy."
After reading this article, I thought about the court cases we read in class over the past weeks, and if the intent was not to promote discrimination then there isn’t a case, but by them allowing websites to be accessed that were against gay rights puts them at risk for discrimination, which is why I believe there is proper cause for a case. The intent was to save students from being gay not just to shelter them from pornography. This is similar to how schools would find a way to go around the laws in the cases we discussed last week. If the intent was to only practice the Internet Protection Act in 2000 as stated, then why was antigay organizations websites provided?
A Tennessee mothers, Lauren Jerrell, will be tried with contempt-of-court charges and possible jail time for baptizing her children without the consent of her ex-husband. The charges that are being brought up against her is that she violated a court order. In Tennessee the parenting plan, which the court said was violated by Jerrell, requires that both parents have to agree on religious upbringing of the child. Since Jerrell baptized the children without the fathers consent and knowledge she would be violating the parenting plan.
This case that is going to be seen by the Tennessee Supreme Court can be seen as either the court interfering with religious disputes between parents or the right of the parent to influence their child with their personal religion. One of the mother's attorney stated that since their was no personal harm to the children that the parenting plan is unconstitutional. That as a divorced parent Jerrell has the right to influence her children with her personal religion, which includes the baptism of her children. The father disagreed with this because he believed that the children were to young to be baptized.
This could either be seen as the court interfering with the religious freedom of parents to influence their children or that it was a simple violating of a court order. Since the First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." and since the parenting plan gives the court the authority to decide for the parent if they can't come to a mutual agreement is the problem in this case. Since the court order has to do with religious disputes between parents it can be seen as an interference of government in personal religion.
The Court of Appeals Judge Alan E. Highers said that this case with Jeller has nothing to do with religion but if their was a failure on the part of the mother to follow court orders they had to prosecute her for that and that only. It can be argued that this can be seen as a religion case where the courts would be major entanglement of religion and government. Through the First Amendment there should be neutrality in cases that involve religion and that through the establishment clause the court should remain neutral in all cases that pertain to religion.
How can a court rule on and issue that is a private matter that involves religious decision-making which the court should stay away from. The courts should remain neutral while the court here decided that since the mother chose to baptize the children against the fathers wishes she was in contempt of the court order. The parenting plan has complex wording that the law requires the court to become entangled with parental religious decision-making.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
In Stratford, Connecticut a woman is being fined $50 every day she keeps her mezuzah on her doorpost. Barbara Cadranel, the owner of the mezuzah, relayed her sadness and described being bullied by her neighbors who actually pulled down her mezuzah repeatedly before asking her to remove it. Her neighbors and the condo association claim that they are not reacting to the religious nature of the mezuzah but claim that Cadranel did not write the association to ask for permission to place the mezuzah on her door and that furthermore no one in the building is allowed to place anything on door frames or outside windows, considered a common area.
However, Cadranel claims that she was never told that she needed written permission from the condo association and the whole situation reeks of anti-Semitism. The video shows Easter decorations in force throughout the building, including in common areas, but the condo association claims these items are alright because they are not on doorposts. When a former member of the board was interviewed she could provide no reason why Cadranel should take down her mezuzah other than “to keep the place neat” and says she believes everyone, meaning all the non-Jews, will put them up simply because Cadranel was allowed to keep her mezuzah. While one neighbor stated she thought there may be some fire code violation no one from the condo association has offered up a legitimate reason as to why items are not allowed on door frames. This conflict is heating up because of the fine imposed every day Cadranel leaves the mezuzah up.
The role of religious symbols in the public sphere has been a heated debate. However, the mezuzah’s place on the threshold of the Jewish home leaves it in an ambiguous place. Cadranel’s lawyer stated, “A mezuza is not a decorative choice for Jews, or a choice of any kind.” The mezuzah has a very specific location and position that is identical in every Jewish home. While the condo association’s ban on items in doorframes seems neutral, albeit arbitrary, there is only one group of people with a constitutional right to put items in door frames affected by this ban, and this case one single person.
Judging from her neighbors’ reactions there may have not ever been any Jewish families in this condo to challenge this ban making residents assume the mezuzah is a decoration and confused why Cadranel is fighting them. Now that the legal battle is heating up I’m curious why they do not lift the ban especially since they have offered no legitimate reason for the ban in the first place. There seems to be no clear cut answer when put through the Lemon test, but the lack of a legitimate reason for such a ban calls into question its creation and defense these past few weeks.