Whither the Culture Wars?

A whole lot of people must have been out of the office yesterday because I am quoted in a Foxnews.com article on political clashes between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration. Although I am not sure that it quite captures my remarks to say that “Catholic politicians have been excommunicated in recent years for not supporting positions consistent with the church’s teachings,” I did note what seems to me to be an increased insistence by at least certain Bishops on faithfulness to the Church’s positions on life issues (as opposed to positions generally) and a willingness to enforce that through denial of the Eucharist and cited, for context, New Orleans Archbishop Joseph Francis Rummel’s excommunication of three segregationist politicians in 1962. 

Just how aggressive the Church should be in insisting that Catholic politicians follow Church teachings is a topic that has been debated for as long as I can remember (a period that has come to be distressingly long) and I am not sure that I can add anything to on this cold January morning. I am a confirmed opponent of privileged status for public reason and a staunch supporter of political moderation by the church.

Continue ReadingWhither the Culture Wars?

The Holiday Formerly Known as Good Friday

The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation has sent a letter of complaint regarding the  recognition of Good Friday as a campus holiday by fifteen of the state’s sixteen technical colleges, apparently pursuant to collective bargaining agreements with instructional staff. The FFRF argues that closing on Good Friday (not just calling the off day “Good Friday’) is inconsistent with a 1996 decision of the Western District of Wisconsin invalidating a state law that mandated the closing of public facilities for the purpose of worship.

The prior decision seems distinguishable to me given the statute’s explicit reference to closing for a religious purpose. It’s hard, in light of that, not to see the statute as violating current Establishment Clause doctrines.

These cases tend to turn on some ascription (often fictional) of a religious or secular purpose to the state.  FFRF will have to show that the recognition of the Good Friday holiday has a religious purpose or amounts to an endorsement of Christianity. It may well lose because a court will conjure some secular justification for recognition of the holiday, e.g, that the day also known as Good Friday has become a traditional opening to the spring vacation.

Continue ReadingThe Holiday Formerly Known as Good Friday

Religion in Public Places

An unsettled question in the law of limited purpose public forums is whether forums that are made available for broad purposes can exclude religious worship. In a trio of cases culminating in Good News Club v. Milford Central School, the Supreme Court has made clear that religious uses that are within a forum’s purpose cannot be excluded because they are religious. Thus, the Milford school, having decided to make its facilities broadly available for after hours community use, could not exclude the Good News Club, an evangelical Christian group who wished to conduct bible study and related activities for children.

Some have read Good News Club (incorrectly in my view) to recognize a distinction between worship and other forms of religious uses. In this paper (forthcoming in the Mississippi Law Journal), I draw on the theology of Christian worship (which I think broadly applies to many other religious traditions) to argue that worship, while sometimes seen as noncommunicative and deliberative, is, in fact, both and ought not to be excluded from broadly defined forums.

Here’s a related question.

Continue ReadingReligion in Public Places