Monthly Newsletter — April 2009 E-Update

Apr 14, 2009

Obama Administration to eliminate protections for health care workers

Luke Goodrich, Legal Counsel

April 9th was the last day for the public to submit comments on an Obama Administration proposal to eliminate a regulation protecting the conscience rights of health care workers. The regulations, which went into effect on January 20, protect the rights of health care workers who want to opt out of performing procedures or dispensing medications that would violate their conscience.

\"Protections for conscience are older than the Constitution and are widely recognized in state, federal, and international law,\" said Luke Goodrich, legal counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. \"Rescinding the conscience regulation will remove crucial safeguards for health care workers and will force qualified individuals out of the profession solely because of their religious beliefs.\"

On April 8th, the Becket Fund submitted a response which carefully detailed the history of conscientious objection and the legal and historical support for the right of conscience in the health care profession.

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Kentucky Supreme Court to consider whether state programs can help religious institutions of higher learning build pharmacy schools

Lori Windham, Legal Counsel

The Supreme Court in Kentucky will consider a case, University of Cumberlands v. Pennybacker, where the constitutionality of state programs to help religious institutions of higher learning is at stake. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an amicus brief because this case may have major repercussions for all religious universities seeking state assistance. According to a lower court decision, a grant that went to help a program at a religious school was an appropriation in aid of a \"sectarian\" school in violation of Section 189 of the Kentucky Constitution.

\"In Kentucky, supporters of Section 189 likened \'sectarian\' schools to a snake which sought to \'fasten its everlasting fangs on the throat of popular and state education,\'\" said Lori Windham, Legal Counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. \"The only slithering here is trying to slip by Section 189 as something other than a \'Blaine Amendment\' - one of about 35 state constitutional provisions passed in the late 19th and early 20th century out of hostility to immigrants (especially Catholics) and their \'sectarian\' schools.\"

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Human Rights Council ignores a petition by 180 NGOs from 50 countries

Thursday, March 26, 2009, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a \"defamations of religions\" resolution by a vote of 23 yes, 11 no, 13 abstentions. This is the second year in a row that \"no\" votes and \"abstention\" votes outweigh the \"yes\" votes.

Countries that voted in favor ignored a petition signed by a wide coalition of over 180 non-governmental organizations from over 50 different countries requesting that the Human Rights Council reject a resolution on \"defamation of religions.\" The petition was co-drafted by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

\"Human rights protect people, not ideas,\" said L. Bennett Graham, Becket Fund representative to the UN presently in Geneva. \"The passage of this resolution by the Human Rights Council is a disaster for people of all faiths.\"

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\"A Modest St. Paddy\'s Day Proposal\" by Kevin J. \"Seamus\" Hasson

This piece ran on Tuesday, March 17, 2009 in the Opinion section of the Wall Street Journal Online.

Well, we\'ve done it. We\'ve managed to celebrate another St. Patrick\'s Day without any lawsuits by Anglophiles trying to enjoin Irish parades as ominous omens of ethnic cleansing to come. What\'s more, we again made it all the way through February--African-American History Month--with no attempts by Euro-Americans to enjoin it as the first step down a long, slippery slope to apartheid.

Yes, of course, those are both preposterous ideas. And yes, of course, they\'d both be laughed out of court. That\'s the whole point: they are no more preposterous than the annual December lawsuits over nativity scenes and menorahs, which deserve the same fate.

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Religious & Civil Rights Groups to Court: Quoting Scripture is not a Crime

Wednesday, March 18, 2009, a coalition of a dozen religious and civil rights groups asked a Michigan appeals court to release a Christian minister put on house arrest because he claimed God would punish the judge who sentenced him. Reverend Edward Pinkney wrote an article in the Chicago-area People\'s Tribune quoting language from the Bible (the Book of Deuteronomy) that God would punish the judge for his wrongdoing. The court then revoked Pinkney\'s probation because the Biblical quotes were \"threatening.\" The civil rights coalition, which includes the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the American Jewish Congress, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, and Liberty Legal Institute, among others, filed a friend of the court brief asking the appeals court to overturn the trial court\'s order.

\"The First Amendment was designed to protect ministers speaking religious truth to political power,\" said Eric Rassbach, the Becket Fund\'s National Director of Litigation. \"Our country has a proud history of allowing ministers to hold government officials to account. A court can\'t punish someone for saying that the judge broke God\'s law. Judges don\'t get to decide whether prophecies are true, even when those prophecies apply to them. Courts should stick to the law and leave theology to people of faith,\" added Rassbach.

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Court finds that county violated church\'s civil rights

Monday, March 30, 2009, a federal court in Denver reaffirmed that Boulder County had violated the rights of Rocky Mountain Christian Church of Colorado, which is represented by The Becket Fund. The decision forces the County to grant a special use permit allowing the Church to expand its facilities. The ruling follows a trial last November in which a jury found that the county had violated the church\'s civil rights under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA).

\"This sends a message to zoning boards and local governments everywhere: RLUIPA applies to you too,\" said Eric Rassbach, National Director of Litigation. \"The Court decision reaffirms that Boulder County violated the law and ensures that Rocky Mountain Christian Church, which has been bursting at the seams, is finally allowed to build these vital facilities.\"

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Fifth Circuit hears religious liberty case

Eric Rassbach,
National Litigation
Director

Wednesday, April 1, 2009, the Fifth Circuit heard arguments in the Santeria case Merced v. City of Euless, TX. Eric Rassbach, National Litigation Director of The Becket Fund, argued on behalf of Jose Merced, a practitioner of Santeria who sued Euless after being denied permission to sacrifice a goat as part of a religious ceremony at his home.

\"Goat sacrifice is never going to be popular in Texas, but what is good for the goose has to be good for the goat,\" said Rassbach. \"If Euless permits animal killing for hunting, fishing, meat production, pest control and euthanasia, it cannot ban it for religious reasons.\"

The judges of the court seemed particularly interested when questioning Euless why the town could not simply include a permitting system that would allow Mr. Merced to engage in religious ceremonies while at the same time meeting the city\'s interests.

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Statement of Angela Wu for the Durban Review Conference

The U.N. Sub-Committee for the Elimination of Racism sponsored the Global Movement Against Racism in Support of the Durban Conference Program, which took place in New York City March 26, 2009, in the ECOSOC Chamber of the United Nations Building.

The following is from a statement which Angela Wu, International Law Director of the Becket Fund, submitted to the panel in lieu of a personal appearance. Follow the link below to see the full statement. Ms. Wu was invited to the panel as a member of the governing Bureau of the UN NGO Committee on Religious Freedom or Belief.

I think we can all agree that the issue of racism is an extremely important one in the world today. Despite the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, and Mahatma Gandhi, racism is still ever-present. We must make sure in our discussion here today and as we prepare for the significant Durban Review Conference, that we focus on racism.

It is therefore unfortunate that the concept referred to as \"combating the defamation of religions\" has consistently been brought up in the context of the Durban process. Religious discrimination does often coincide with acts of racism, but we must distinguish between that sociological occurrence and the conflation of legal protections against racism and religious discrimination.

The conflation of race and religion diminishes the uniqueness of both race and religion. Race is something we simply can\'t change. It is not something we chose or are able to alter. Religion on the other hand, even as it has communal and public expression and purpose, is something that exists in the forum internum and calls to choices of the conscience. Treating racial and religious discrimination as the same thing confuses racist hate speech with discussion of -- sometimes controversial -- truth claims. Whereas one can easily identify and narrowly define racist hate speech, it is not nearly so simple to define what falls into the category of \"defamation of religion,\" which can include any controversial truth claim the powerful do not like.<.

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