Jan

12

Tebowing and the Constitution

Posted by: | January 12, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Much has been made of Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow’s outward expressions of his Christian faith, especially his practice of kneeling in moments of prayer—“Tebowing” as it is now called—after touchdowns, some of them admittedly a bit miraculous. A recent issue of Time magazine, for example, included an article on Mr. Tebow, his faith, and the [...]

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Dec

7

American Restrictive Covenants and Israeli Community Exclusions

Posted by: | December 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment

Controversies in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s regarding restrictive covenants related to race foreshadow current controversies in Israel regarding community exclusions of Arab citizens. Both controversies illustrate how difficult it is to maintain equality in a pluralistic society and underscore the importance of freedom to choose one’s housing in that effort. In [...]

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Sep

25

The Supreme Court and the Fate of the Ministerial Exception

Posted by: | September 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment

In 1999, Cheryl Perich began service as a lay teacher at the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School in Redford, Michigan.  A year later, she became a “called teacher,” selected by the congregation to serve as a commissioned minister and charged with duties of a more pastoral nature, such as teaching religion classes, leading the [...]

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Sep

22

Accommodation of Prisoners With Idiosyncratic Religious Beliefs

Posted by: | September 22, 2011 | 4 Comments

Under O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U.S. 342 (1987), prison officials may restrict inmates’ religious practices, but such restrictions are constitutionally limited to those that reasonably relate to legitimate penological objectives. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act offers additional, statutory protections. But talk of a religious practice normally conjures up the image of an organized [...]

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Apr

14

National Health Care Decisions Day, Jehovah’s Witnesses & Mature Minors

Posted by: | April 14, 2011 | 8 Comments

April 16th is the 4th Annual National Health Care Decisions Day, a day when health-care practitioners reach out and express the importance of having discussions about personal values and treatment preferences, especially in the event of loss of function and end-of-life circumstances. I encourage every adult to complete an advance directive because any adult can [...]

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Apr

11

SCOTUS to Consider Scope of Ministerial Exception

Posted by: | April 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment

When the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided Coulee Catholic Schools v. LIRC, 2009 WI 88 , Professor Esenberg and I both took to this blog to praise Justice Gableman’s majority decision. The decision is undoubtedly the most important religious liberty case in Wisconsin since Jackson v. Benson (1998) and State v. Miller (1996). It concerned the [...]

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Mar

22

Science, Religion, Politics, and Stem Cell Research

Posted by: | March 22, 2011 | Leave a Comment

In a new paper on SSRN, Ed Fallone explores one of the most contentious policy questions in the field of public bioethics: whether and under what constraints the federal government ought to fund stem cell research.  Ed provides a thorough overview of the history and competing viewpoints in the debate.  He also draws interesting parallels between [...]

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Nov

25

The Mayflower Compact

Posted by: | November 25, 2010 | 1 Comment

About a year before the first Thanksgiving, in early November 1620, the Pilgrims landed in Cape Cod.  In Mayflower Nathaniel Philbrick recounts how before landing in Provincetown Harbor, the Pilgrims drafted and signed the Mayflower Compact.  The Mayflower Compact states in full:  Having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith [...]

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Aug

30

Law and Theology – Who Says It’s Not Practical ???

Posted by: | August 30, 2010 | 1 Comment

I was glad to see that Bruce linked to the fascinating debate on the nature of legal education prompted by Brent Newton’s article claiming that law professors “preach” what they don’t “practice.”  I’ll comment later, although my general view, as someone who has much more practice experience than the typical full time legal academic, I [...]

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Aug

26

Freedom of Religion or Freedom from Religion

Posted by: | August 26, 2010 | 4 Comments

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states, in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .” These two clauses, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, respectively, are viewed by most as a reaction to both the establishment of [...]

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Jul

10

Best of the Blogs

Posted by: | July 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment

What do we have this week? Over at the wonderful Mirror of Justice, you can follow a debate involving Michael Perry, Mike Scaperlanda, Robbie George, Robert Hockett and Rick Garnett  and others (I’ve linked to some but not all of the posts in the thread) on Pope Benedict XVI’s concern about the “dictatorship of relativism.”  Professor Hockett’s argument that [...]

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May

17

John McDill Fox and the Idea of Catholic Legal Education

Posted by: | May 17, 2010 | 3 Comments

John McDill Fox was the first member of the Marquette Law School faculty to have attended Harvard Law School and the first to be hired as a dean at another law school.  With his colleague Carl Zollman, he founded the academic field of aviation law, and unlike his faculty colleagues at Marquette, he believed that [...]

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