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Saturday, April 7, 2012

Is Religious Freedom for Individuals or Organizations?

Saturday, April 7, 2012 - 0 Comments


Who could possibly want to fight against more religious freedom?  That is a question that Coloradoand Floridaare bringing to the public this coming elections season.  The questions are not the same, but considering the timing it is likely that they are both responses to the debate over contraceptives that we have spent so much time discussing over the last few weeks. 

In Florida the proposed amendment will repeal the law that forbids the government from providing financing to religious organizations.  The opposition worries that this will open the door to more voucher programs sending students to parochial schools instead of public schools.  In Colorado the proposal is vaguer.  It simply seems to restate principals from the constitution.  The proposed extra text can be found here.  It mostly changes things I believe by adding religious organization to the clause which is part of what is being debated when it comes to the issue of religious freedom.  Do organizations have rights, or is it simply a matter of individuals.  The issue that this is likely responding to makes it even more complicated since the individuals that make up the organization seem to have a difference of opinion from the organization itself.

Was the wording of our constitution meant to protect religious organizations or just individuals in their personal belief?  It is a question that is fraught with a lot of baggage.  The religion that many Americans follow is one that is centered on individual choice and interpretation, but that is not the way with all religions.  By favoring a legal system that favors the individual over the organizations that they may belong to are we in fact favoring a certain type of religion? 

I agree that the rights of the individual are what this country is built on and not the rights of organizations, but I do not think that that means that the organizations have to be completely stripped of rights.  I think that the Catholic Church has the right to disagree with birth control and I think that parishioners have the right to leave the church if they disagree with it.  I also think that if they are an employer then they should follow the same laws as other employers and receive the same benefits.  By this token I actually do not see a problem with the proposal in Florida.  I think allowing religious organizations the same rights to government money that nonreligious organizations receive is completely constitutional.  I agree with the opposition that it could lead to more voucher programs providing money to parochial schools, but that was already held up as constitutional in Zelman v. Simmons.  The one in Colorado is a little more troubling, but not enough that I disagree on just the surface.  I think it leaves too little space for the government to decide that the rights of the individuals or the benefit of the people around the organization trumps their rights.  Like so many things with the interaction between religion and law it is difficult to see just what the effects of either of these initiatives will be if they make it to law.  

Monday, April 2, 2012

Religious Biases, a Highly Contested Debate

Monday, April 2, 2012 - 0 Comments



Vanderbilt University, in Nashville Tennessee, is currently facing an issue related to non-discrimination policies on campus and their affects on religious groups. According to the school’s non-discrimination policy; any student can be a member or run for office of any student run group.
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.

I think that Vanderbilt is doing the ‘right’ thing in this situation. Not only is the university upholding their non-discrimination policy, but they are also trying to prevent further occurrences of this. Cases like Christian Legal Society v. Martinez prove to be beneficial for the support of the university and general support of anti-biases. I agree with Vanderbilt. I think someone’s religious background or lack of religious background is not sufficient support in denying them the right to participate in activities, or to run for a position within the organization.

I am involved with several organizations on campus and I cannot imagine the backlash that would come from someone being denied to participate due to their involvement in a particular religious group.
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.


Preston L.

School District Told to Replace Web Filter Blocking Pro-Gay Sites

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?

Tennessee mom faces jail for baptizing her children without her husband's consent



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.

A Fresh Take on Universal Health Care: A Jewish Moral Perspective

The Supreme Court concluded their hearings this week on President Obama’s universal health care reform, and the country now awaits the court’s final decisions expected sometime after June.   The court is considering complex jurisprudential questions that the health care plan presents:   The constitutionality of the individual mandate and whether Congress can penalize those who do not buy health insurance.   Further more complicated questions stem from this that reach beyond individual responsibility of the insured to include responsibility of the insurers and of the states.
Mr. Obama’s goal of universal health coverage has its share of legal, political, and public oppositions.      This opinion piece presents a refreshing alternative perspective to these debates.   The author reframes the constitutionality argument using guiding principles from Judaism, calling it a Jewish moral imperative.   The leading question this article presents is whether American society views itself as an ‘American community.’  The author asks, if America is a community then we are faced with two fundamental questions:  Do we believe there is some minimal level of care for physical well-being that every member of that community is entitled?  How do we go about deciding how much that basic level ought to be?   This approach does not offer a solution to the health care reform; rather it is a reframing of the issues using ethical principles that are well established in Judaism.  
The “moral mandate” principle set forth in this article is in sharp contrast to the “individual mandate.”   The concept of a moral mandate relies on the Talmud, a collection of Jewish law and principles, which states that a community must provide, among other things, basic health care and a doctor.   She adds that simply “reducing fees to care of the poor is not sufficient, the community must provide a fund.”   This principle is based on the concept of ‘community’ in the Jewish tradition which stems from the fundamental understanding of the Jewish community, which requires as many as ten people to meet obligations of Jewish religious life.  This understanding is based on the “assumptions of the interdependence of the human family.”
The health care principle in Jewish tradition is not limited to a theory of ethical behavior but has also been put into practice.   The Rabbinical Assembly, an international community of 1600 Conservative rabbis, passed resolutions on health care in 2002 and 2008 and in support of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.  Affordable health care is not a new concept.   The author of this piece points to the fact that her father-in-law served in the public sector as Commissioner of Health of New York City in 1974 and was the first director of the Medicaid program in New York City fifty years ago.   With his experience in public health, he recognized the “unavoidable need for a system of coverage that would provide health care to all.”   
If we change our perspective from ‘individual’ to that of ‘community,’ it shifts the responsibility to the community, however large you envision a community, and we might then begin to possibly address the “sweeping moral and demographic problem.”   The author stresses there is a moral obligation and a practical urgency in providing health care for all.  But, first, Americans have to “face difficult decisions required to realistically face this problem.”    
We have to recognize that America is a highly individualistic society, based on the theory that individuals can make the best personal choices and that society has no right to interfere in the person’s decision making.   Individualism is in contrast to a collective community.  A negative political view of ‘community’ is often referred to as ‘socialism.’   Accusations of promoting ‘socialism’ have been hurled at the Obama administration and is used to discredit the administration’s vision.  Providing basic health care to the poor, uninsured and every individual according to Mr. Obama‘s vision is consistent with the ethical principles the Talmud calls for.   
Is the concept of a moral mandate limited to Jewish moral principles?   Is it possible to use this principle as a starting point to address why health care should be provided to all?  It may not possible to remove all legal and political implications of health care reform in our society, but it is possible to redirect the conversation currently framed with individual rights to that of a moral mandate and call for the responsibility of the American “community” to provide basic public health care to every individual as a moral responsibility of the nation.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Mezuzah v. Condo Association

Sunday, April 1, 2012 - 0 Comments

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.

Atheist Rally: Precursor to Religious Equality Movement?



 In a recent article from USAToday, Cathy Grossman reports on a large atheist rally held just outside the Washington Monument on Saturday, March 24 of this year. The rally, which included around 20,000 atheists, featured several speakers, such as Richard Dawkins and David Silverman, who urged atheists to start taking a stand against the oppression of their religious peers. Dawkins even went so far as to encourage his fellow atheists to “ridicule and show contempt” for religious teachings and traditions. Others, like Hemant Mehta, took a more political approach by urging atheists to be more involved with or run for positions in public office. But why was this rally even necessary? What has made these atheists so angry?
                My guess: religious favoritism in government. Though the American Government has recently moved toward maintaining a position of neutrality in the religious realm, certain practices show a distinct lack of equality among the religious and non-believers. For one, religious groups receive special benefits, in the form of tax exemptions and the recent contraceptive exemptions, simply because they claim a violation of their religious beliefs. Also, Christians are particularly favored in phrases like “In God We Trust,” which is stamped on all national currency, or “One Nation, Under God,” a line from the Pledge of Allegiance which most school children recite each and every day. These practices have been upheld by the court under the premise of “ceremonial deism,” but when your personal beliefs reject the existence of any deity, such policies seem less than neutral.
                Is government neutrality even possible, though? In the Supreme Court decision of Lee v. Weisman (1992), a case about prayer at public school graduations, the court struck down the practice as unconstitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Their reasoning, however, left room for cases like Jones v. Clear Creek (1992) which held that student-led prayer at graduation ceremonies is permissible as long as there is no interference on the part of government officials. Such decisions lead to questions about the possibility of true neutrality in government. By ruling that student-led prayer is acceptable, the court has created the opportunity for religious students to undermine the rights of their non-religious peers by forcing them to participate (or at least observe) a prayer which runs counter to their personal beliefs. If the court was to ban prayer altogether, however, Christians would claim infringement on their free exercise rights, and the battle for supremacy would continue.
                So what is the next step for those atheists who seek to destroy this governmental favoritism for religion? This rally seems like the first step in what could be a very successful religious equality movement. Though the court has not been a particularly favorable venue for atheists in the past, solid reasoning and good public relations could lead to equal rights for all people, regardless of their personal beliefs.

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