Religious Liberty

This article delves into the intricate interplay between human rights law and Islamic law, a topic of significant importance in the contemporary legal landscape. It explores the theoretical and conceptual challenges that arise when reconciling secular, universal rights with religious legal principles. While both systems advocate for justice, dignity, and social welfare, significant divergences, particularly in areas like gender equality, religious freedom, and criminal punishment, create barriers to harmonization. By analyzing these areas of conflict and highlighting the role of Islamic scholars in reinterpreting religious law, this article outlines the potential for greater alignment between Islamic jurisprudence and international human rights standards. Through evolving jurisprudence, international dialogue, and reforms in Muslim-majority nations, there are emerging pathways for bridging the gaps between these two legal frameworks.

Analyzing the battle over Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple’s enormous treasure, the paper documents the litigious journey of the concept of sacred possession and heritage. It shows how the evolving and complex logic of secular governance in India provides the legal categories that animate this contestation over the deity’s wealth. While the enormous treasure trove housed in the six chambers of the temple’s basement ‘belongs’ to the idol (murthi) Lord Sree Padmanabhaswamy, the royal family of Travancore has held the right for over the last two hundred and seventy years to control the wealth as the Lord’s servants (dasa). Though the dispute over what is arguably the world’s largest temple gold and valuables collection began in 2007, it gained widespread media attention in 2009 when a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed. Since then, the royal family, temple management, and other stakeholders have been embroiled in the struggle for possession and control of the temple’s wealth. The paper explores how legal frames of Anglo-Hindu law in their postcolonial avatars, material patrimony (gold and land), and notions of immaterial heritage (shebaitship) animated and framed this contestation. To this end, the paper maps the legal trajectory of the dispute and the public debates over the ownership and control of the astounding wealth of Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple. Further, it decodes the legal reasoning behind the courts’ arguments and delves into ontological questions surrounding religious freedom and secularity. The discussion illustrates how notions of immaterial heritage anchored in ideas of kingship as well as kinship emerged as clinching evidence in the management and access to this sacred wealth. Finally, the analyses offer insights into the governance of sacred materiality through religio-legal categories in a postcolonial nation-state.

Background I originally wrote this paper in February 2022 in response to intense pressure from family members to take a Covid-19 vaccine. I held the conviction that it was not right for me. Instead of engaging in pointless verbal arguments, I decided to lay out my thought process as thoroughly and rigorously as possible. My family cares about me very much, and I felt they deserved the best explanation I could provide. The paper below is the document I sent to those family members. For context, at the time of writing, I was a 26-year-old male and a former Division I collegiate athlete.  In this paper, I focus on the Covid vaccines and avoid conversation about masks and other similar topics. Specifically, I discuss the initial clinical trials, the vaccine's effectiveness on reducing transmission, evidence of adverse events, and early treatment protocols.

Pour défendre les chrétiens persécutés pour leur refus d’adorer l’Empereur, Tertullien dans son Apologétique retourne les arguments développés par les autorités romaines et les accuse d’impiété parce quelles veulent forcer les cœurs par leur pouvoir et domination injustes. Dans une société où la religion a un sens directement politique, Tertullien pose ainsi les fondements du principe de la liberté religieuse.

To defend the Christians persecuted for their refusal to worship the Emperor, Tertullian, in his Apologetics turns the arguments developed by the Roman authorities reverse and accuses them of impiety because they want to force hearts by their unjust power and domination. In a society where religion has a directly political meaning, Tertullian thus lays the foundations of the principle of religious freedom.

J. Doomen, A. Ellian and G. Molier (eds.), Law and Morality Revisited. The Hague: Boom, 2024. Editor (with Afshin Ellian and Gelijn Molier). I wrote a chapter (with Gelijn Molier) (pp. 297-314) and co-autored the general introduction (pp. 1-10).

In recent decades, the Catholic Church has changed its position on the cremation of the faithful departed, moving from a decidedly anticremation stance to a more open-minded one. For various reasons, including the lack of space in cemeteries and the significantly lower costs compared to burial, the use of cremation has increased exponentially. Thus, the hostile connotation of this practice with respect to the Church’s doctrine on the resurrection of bodies has been lost. Therefore, in some countries, such as Germany, the conversion of redundant churches into columbaria, i.e. places where the ashes of the faithful can be kept, has become widespread, while maintaining the sacred character of the place. This contribution, starting from the creation of a special commission on the matter by the Archdiocese of Bologna, which resulted in the two questions answered by the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on 9 December 2023, intends to present the problematic profiles of this solution in the Italian context, in the light of the complexity and plurality of regional regulations about mortuary police.

The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) protects the religious rights of incarcerated individuals by mandating that an institution must have a compelling state interest and use the least restrictive means to achieve that interest. However, RLUIPA falls short in securing the rights of incarcerated individuals established in the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause due to a broad application of these requirements, over-reliance on the deference of prison officials, and inconsistent interpretations of federal courts. Further, the application of due deference has diluted the strict scrutiny mandated by RLUIPA. As a result, the jurisprudence surrounding RLUIPA lacks clarity and courts rely on the guidance of prison officials instead of the sincere convictions of incarcerated individuals and the specific merits of their requested accommodations. Under its current framework, courts issue contradictory interpretations of RLUIPA, prisons incorrectly apply its provisions, and incarcerated individuals face undue obstacles in exercising their religion. Minority faiths face particular detriment. For RLUIPA to serve its intended purpose, strict scrutiny must apply with due deference only being granted in areas in which prison officials have expertise and not in interpreting the prerogatives of a faith.

Researchers Ksenia Luchenkо and Kirill Shamiev look at the increasing militarization of the Church since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In particular, top clergy and priests are actively shaping the perception that the war is not just morally acceptable but even sacred.

Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis humanae (DH), poses the problem of development in Catholic moral and social doctrine. This problem is threefold, consisting in properly understanding the meaning of pre-conciliar magisterial teaching on religious liberty, the meaning of DH itself, and the Declaration’s implications for how social doctrine develops. A survey of recent scholarship reveals that scholars attend to the first two elements in contradictory ways, and that their accounts of doctrinal development are vague.

The dissertation then proceeds to the threefold problematic. Chapter two outlines the general parameters of doctrinal development. The third chapter gives an interpretation of the pre- conciliar teaching from Pius IX to John XXIII. To better determine the meaning of DH, the fourth chapter examines the Declaration’s drafts and the official explanatory speeches (relationes) contained in Vatican II’s Acta synodalia. The fifth chapter discusses how experience may contribute to doctrinal development and proposes an explanation for how the doctrine on religious liberty changed, drawing upon the work of Jacques Maritain and Basile Valuet.

I argue that DH can be understood as a homogeneous development by clarifying the three elements of the problem in the following ways. First, two pre-conciliar developments in Catholic social teaching prepared for DH, namely, Pius XI’s personalistic doctrine of the common good and Pius XII’s articulation of the new demands placed upon nation-states in an international juridical order. Second, I argue that DH preserves in a new modality doctrines that some scholars assume were discarded by Vatican II, such as the duty of civil authorities toward the Catholic Church and the place of the objective moral law in limiting free exercise. Third, I draw upon Maritain and Valuet to argue that the inherent elasticity of society, being an operational and not substantial unity, indicates the limits and possibilities of change in Catholic social doctrine. In the process I introduce to the English literature Valuet’s theory of a development in the ius gentium as a necessary condition for universal exercise of the natural right of religious liberty.

This article analyzed various versions of women agency to deal with their everyday and life-transitions in 18th-century Europe underlining women agency to face up and overcome institutional-judicial and social constrictions, control and discipline within societies with no recognition to women right of self-representation in court. This research focus is in women capacities to earn social recognition of right to make decision on their own lives (liberties), despite the need of making great efforts and of keeping their decisions in the worst circumstances and during several decades of their lives.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments established important restrictions on religious freedom. Due to a restrictive interpretation of the right to religious freedom, religion was placed in the category of “non-essential activity” and was, therefore, unprotected. Within this framework, this paper tries to offer a reflection on the relevance of the dual nature of religious freedom as an individual and collective right, since the current crisis has made it clear that the individual dimension of religious freedom is vulnerable when the legal model does not offer an adequate institutional guarantee to the collective dimension of religious freedom.

La libertad religiosa ha vuelto a despertar en Estados Unidos en la última década de la mano de su Tribunal Supremo, la misma institución constitucional que, años antes, había puesto contra las cuerdas a su libertad más preciada y fundamental. Regulada escuetamente la libertad la libertad religiosa en la Primera Enmienda (de 1791), esta garantiza que el Congreso no podrá promulgar ninguna ley que establezca una religión oficial (Cláusula de No-Establecimiento) o prohibir la libre práctica de una religión en particular (Cláusula de Libre Ejercicio). Esta Enmienda protege también la libertad de expresión, de prensa, de reunión, y el derecho de solicitar al gobierno compensación por agravios.

The politicization of ethnocultural diversity and the demands posed by minority cultures for greater public recognition of their distinctive identities, and greater freedom and opportunity to retain and develop their distinctive cultural practices challenge liberal democracies. In response to these demands, new and creative mechanisms are being adopted in many countries for accommodating difference. This paper discusses some of the issues raised by these demands, focusing in particular on the difficulties that arise when the minority seeking accommodation is illiberal.

Puede afirmarse que la finalidad última del republicanismo cívico es hacer realidad el ideal de la libertad como no-dominación. Ahora bien, las amenazas para la libertad así entendida no proceden únicamente de los poderes públicos, sino también de ciertos ámbitos privados incluyendo, en gran medida, el mundo laboral, donde con frecuencia los empleados están supeditados a las decisiones arbitrarias de sus empleadores. Por ello, desde esta doctrina se han formulado algunas propuestas encaminadas a eliminar –o, al menos, mitigar– la dominación en este ámbito de las que se dará cuenta en este trabajo.

The purpose of this article is to take into consideration the impact of unprecedented restrictions due to COVID-19 on the exercise of religious freedom according to the Greek legislation and case-law. The crucial fact to be examined is the proportionality of the exceptional measures of the Greek State. At the beginning of the pandemic, religious ceremonies were allowed only in the presence of clerics, but nowadays they are permitted on the condition that the measures of “social distancing” are being followed strictly. As it is generally accepted, the Greek State managed to deal with the pandemic without deviations from constitutional order and protection of fundamental rights, in accordance with a “pressing social need”. In this context, the case-law of the Greek courts is of great importance, which ruled that the above mentioned restrictions did not offend the principle of proportionality, especially because of their temporary and short-term character. Nevertheless, these restrictive measures must be revised from time to time, considering the updated, epidemiological data in order to be selected the most appropriate and less stringent on a case-by-case basis. Consequently, these judgments do not give government a blank cheque regarding the management of the pandemic, but rather provide them with a clear framework which is able to guarantee the measures’ accordance with the Greek Constitution. However, the potential risk that people may become used to the restrictions imposed after the crisis has passed must not be overlooked.

James Madison's powerful 'Detached Memoranda' was totally hidden from the American public and Scholars for over a hundred years, and has not received the public (or Scholarly) exposure this important work deserves. This carefully written and edited work of Mr. Madison, states the importance of several government failures that must be corrected, and protected in the future. The most important of these is the total degree of Religious Liberty guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, and how this basic Liberty was being ignored and corrupted during Madison's lifetime (1751-1836). Religious Liberty is now totally destroyed in America-the United States of America is no longer a Free Nation, it is a nation controlled, corrupted, and destroyed, by a dead, dangerous, and disproved superstition.
Emmett F. Fields

O presente artigo tem por propósito analisar em que medida a proteção à fauna pode impor-se como um limite à prática de cultos religiosos nos quais ocorrem sacrifícios de animais. A questão é delicada se assumirmos que a liberdade religiosa só tem sentido se compreendida como o direito não apenas de ter uma crença, mas de se determinar em razão dela. Como, por outro lado, nenhum direito ou valor pode ser compreendido em seu sentido absoluto, a premissa acima, embora necessária à caracterização do caso como um problema constitucional, está longe de ser suficiente para a sua solução. Nesse quadro, o trabalho pretende identificar critérios minimamente seguros para uma interpretação constitucional adequada dos valores em questão nos casos de sacrifícios de animais em rituais religiosos. This work intends to analyze to what extent animal protection may be a limit to animal sacrifice rituals. It’s a delicate point if we agree that religious freedom should be understood not only as a right...

Although equality is a hallmark of American democracy, in the constitutional framework of the United States religious freedom has a special place as it is the “first freedom”. For many decades, the Supreme Court of the United States has recognized that both of the First Amendment’s religion clauses are vital to protecting religious freedom: the Establishment Clause, which protects against govern- mental endorsement of religion, and the Free Exercise Clause, which ensures the right to publicly express religious faith. In American society dominated by religious pluralism there are no simple solutions to the existing controversies regarding the relationship between religion clauses, which arrive to the Supreme Court’s docket. However, in the last few years a new course on religious freedom is being observed in its jurisprudence. Thanks to several recent landmark victories at the Supreme Court, the mistaken precedents stuck in the 1970s understanding of the Establishment Clause have been corrected. The aim of the contribution, anchored in the Supreme Court jurisprudence, is to reflect upon the impact of these changes on religious communities and individuals living out their faith. Should we then say that we are now witnessing an unprecedented comeback of religious freedom across the country? Can people of faith remain optimistic about the protection of their deeply and sincerely held beliefs? Finally, has the Supreme Court opened a new chapter of history?

Inspired by the Hanafi-Maturidi conception of faith, Hasan Onat traces the roots of all evil in the Muslim world to the lack of justice and liberty in Muslim populations and gives us clues on how to invigorate these principles. He explains how Maturidi’s primary tool of choice, reason, as well as his principles on the distinction between faith and deed, and separation of politics and religion, seem to be the foundation upon which Muslims can build a fulfilling life and social order.

Federal tax treatment matters to churches, the term the IRS uses for all types of religious congregations, including synagogues, mosques, and temples. The federal tax provisions most significant for churches and certain entities closely related to them, however, are not those that the public and commentators often assume. Exemption from income tax and the ability of donors to deduct contributions, the benefits that receive the most public attention, in fact provide surprisingly little benefit either to churches in the aggregate or to most individual churches. Their status as organizations tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, moreover, imposes a variety of burdens on them. The burdens include limitations on lobbying and the prohibition on any intervention in campaigns for public office.

At the same time churches enjoy special tax benefits not afforded to other section 501(c)(3) organizations, not even other kinds of tax-exempt religious organizations. These special benefits make church status appealing. Such benefits include exemption from filing with the IRS Form 990, an annual information return that, with the exception of the names and addresses of major donors, is also publicly available. In addition, the IRS cannot begin any audit of a church unless it complies with several procedures.

These advantages limit oversight of churches by the IRS, the media, and the public. They create an incentive for religious organizations that share some traits commonly found in churches to seek status as a church. Two recent IRS grants of church or association of churches status have attracted sharp criticism from the media and members of Congress. At the same time, a number of developments, such as loss of membership, expansion of virtual worship, and recent Supreme Court Free Exercise jurisprudence, have created new challenges for churches and their tax treatment.

In response to all these developments, this article recommends changes to the longstanding IRS approaches for defining “church” and certain church-affiliated entities. These changes would substitute a definition for church developed by courts and limit the definition for conventions or associations of churches to those of a single denomination. The definitional changes will clarify the distinction between non-church religious organizations and churches. Updating the understanding of “church” to reflect the twenty-first century realities of virtual participation and the increasing diversity of faith communities will also improve IRS oversight.

This article also recommends that the GAO undertake a renewed study of campaign intervention by section 501(c)(3) organizations generally. This study will clarify whether all section 501(c)(3) organizations, including churches, are in fact violating this prohibition in ways that go beyond sporadic, minor, and usually inadvertent footfalls.

In the authors’ view the recommended changes would benefit churches and the public because they take into account both current realities and current concerns. In so doing, they would not only give churches welcome guidance but also increase public trust that churches are not abusing the special privileges they enjoy under federal tax law.