Category: Religion

Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Religion, Society

Teacher At Catholic School Allegedly Fired For Using IVF As “Grave, Immoral” Act

Emily Herx, a teacher at the St. Vincent de Paul school in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has sued the school and the Catholic Diocese, for allegedly firing her for using in vitro fertilization (IVF) to try to get pregnant. Herx (shown here with her husband) says that the local pastor told her that she was a “grave, immoral sinner” for using the process. It is another example of the growing tension between discrimination laws and religious freedom, the subject of a past column. The case could prove quite important in defining the outer reaches of the “ministerial exception” to anti-discrimination laws.

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Bizarre, International, Politics, Religion, Society

Report: Islamic Legislators In Egypt Allegedly Move To Allow Husbands To Have Sex With Dead Wives

Women’s groups are justifiably worried about the domination of Islamic parties in Egypt and the move to rollback on the hard-won rights of women in that country. Now, according to the Daily Mail and various other news sites, legislators are pushing not only to lower the age for marriage for girls but to protect “farewell intercourse” where a husband can have sex with his dead wife up to six hours after she died. If true, both pedophilia and necrophilia would be divinely ordained, according to Islamic clerics in the country. It is not clear if this is a hoax with some people in Egypt reportedly denying the report while others continue to report the story. [Update: A new article is contesting the truth of the necrophilia part of the story]

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Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

Unorthodox Exception Or Preferential Treatment? Brooklyn District Attorney Refuses To Release Names Of Orthodox Jews Accused Of Child Abuse

There is an interesting story out of Brooklyn. The Brooklyn District Attorney routinely releases the names of charged individuals — as do all prosecutors. However, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has decided not to release the names of Orthodox Jews charged with child sex abuse in deference to their “tight-knit and insular” community. That seems like preferential treatment given a particular religious group — a group with considerable political power in New York.

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Academia, Constitutional Law, Religion, Society

Vanderbilt Strips Religious Group of Recognition For Requiring Officers To Have Religious Commitment

I have previously discussed the collision between anti-discrimination laws and free exercise of religion. Now, Vanderbilt University has stripped a Christian student organization of official recognition (and presumably funding) because it requires its members to have a personal commitment to Jesus Christ.

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Politics, Religion

The Cardinal And The Politics Of Fear

-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger

The current Archbishop of Chicago, Francis George (left), recognizes the “difficulty of public discussion … is that the political is the highest level of public discourse.” In explaining the Catholic Church’s concern with the HHS mandate regarding contraception. His Eminence said the first question to ask is: “Is it true or false?”

The product of reason is truth. British philosopher, John Stuart Mill, defined logic “as the science which treats of the operations of the human understanding in the pursuit of truth.”

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Politics, Religion, Society

Catholic Bishop: Obama Acting Like Hitler and Stalin

What happened to those homilies about the prodigal son and rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar’s? Parishioners were surprised with this Sunday’s homily by Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky comparing President Barack Obama’s health care policies to policies of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.

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Bizarre, Free Speech, International, Religion, Torts

Mel Gibson Threatens Defamation Lawsuit Against Joe Eszterhas

The release of a tape taken of Mel Gibson in Costa Rica by the son of screenwriter Joe Eszterhas has prompted a threat of a defamation lawsuit by the actor. Not only did Eszterhas release the tape secretly made by his son during an argument with Gibson, he accused Gibson of not wanting to proceed with the film “The Maccabees” because he hates Jews.

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Bizarre, Politics, Religion, Society, Things That Tick Me Off

The Dangers of Holding Hands

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger

As one who was taught by Benedictine nuns in a Catholic elementary school, I grew up with some strange and possibly severe restrictions on what the nuns called “mixing” the boys and girls. More recently, when my adult children were in school, the Diocese of Rockford forbade Altar boys being on the altar at the same time as Altar girls!  With that background, I thought I had seen it all.  However, the State of Tennessee has just beaten that sorry record of over restrictive rules for school children.  It seems that Tennessee state senators, in their infinite wisdom have updated their already suspect abstinence based sex education law by suggesting that holding hands is a gateway to sex.  Continue reading “The Dangers of Holding Hands” →

Politics, Religion

Divine Comedy? Fourth Candidate Told By God To Run Withdraws From Presidential Race

We previously discussed how God appears to be playing a divine joke on Republican candidates who publicly claimed that he caused them to run — only to go down in flames in the primary. Now Santorum has become the fourth candidate who has withdrawn despite divine instructions to run. It appears that we now know the name that God gave Robertson as the next president of the United States — at least one of two names.

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Religion, Society

Happy Ishtar Day: The Origins of Easter

By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger

Today from Sandy Bay, Maine to San Diego, California, Americans will don their Sunday Best, attend a religious service, and enjoy the Spring air while their kids search for candy and eggs. A  joyous celebration on both the Christian and secular calendar, it wasn’t always that way — or maybe it was.

Easter was looked on with some skepticism by the ultra-religious Puritan sect when they showed up at Plymouth Bay. According to author Steve Englehart, these earlier settlers had bona fide religious reasons to eschew the holiday. “They knew that pagans had celebrated the return of spring long before Christians celebrated Easter…for the first two hundred years of European life in North America, only a few states, mostly in the South, paid much attention to Easter.”

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Justice, Politics, Religion, Society, Things That Tick Me Off

The Roman Catholic Church and the Gays

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger

On this Easter weekend, I was dismayed when I learned that the Roman Catholic Church recently decided that helping the poor in Colorado obtain health care is fine, as long as the organizations assisting these needy folks were not gay or “hanging out” with the Gays. Continue reading “The Roman Catholic Church and the Gays” →

Criminal law, Religion, Society

California Pastor Arrested For Taking Pliers To Teen After Beating Him, Macing Him, And Making Him Dig His Own Grave

Pastor Lonny Lee Remmers, 54, has been charged with felony assault and inflicting injury on a 13-year-old child with pliers and directing two church members to discipline the youth. He is the pastor of the Heart of Worship Community Church in Corona. After his arrest, many parishioners learned that Remmers has previously served time for fraud. Two other church members — Nicholas Craig, 22, and Darryl Duane Jeter Jr., 28 — have also been charged. Craig is Remmers’ stepson.

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Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Free Speech, International, Politics, Religion, Society

Egyptian Court Sentences 17-Year-Old Christian Boy To Three Years In Jail For Cartoons of Mohammad on Facebook

We have for years been following the rising number of blasphemy prosecutions not only in the Muslim world but, even more worrisome, in the West. Now, an Egyptian court has added a new outrage in sentencing a 17-year-old Christian boy to three years in jail for publishing cartoons on Facebook deemed mocking of Islam and the Prophet Mohammad. It is the latest example of the abuses of Sharia law and the danger of intermingling religion and government.

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Animals, Religion

Should Romney Pick Palin As Running Mate?

One could honestly wonder whose side Sen. John McCain is on this election. Yesterday, McCain gave Mitt Romney a bit of unsolicited (and unhinged) advice on how to beat Barack Obama: do what I did in 2008. McCain went on CBS This Morning and said that the best thing Romney could do it to pick Sarah Palin as a running mate. He appears to be making a joke but one wonders what is more interesting: the fact that McCain might suggest it or that his prior running mate is now an obvious joke as a disastrous choice for a candidate.

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